Stinson Beach, CA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures right at Stinson Beach, CA
The coast right at Stinson Beach, CA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
What this reading actually covers
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Stinson Beach, CA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 37.90°N, 122.65°W. USGS's California assessment last surveyed this stretch through 1852-2016, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 77 individual transects averaged together, 45% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.35 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.01 ft/yr reading would land it 786 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS National Shoreline Change data release (ScienceBase, DOI 10.5066/P94J0K7Z), Kratzmann 2024 / Data Report 1187. For scale: Seaside, OR, 562 miles away, ranks 1136 of 1211 nationally for growth, 1.36 ft/yr. Bolinas, CA, 2.4 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.39 ft/yr.
Stinson Beach, CA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.