Tiki Island, TX Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 9 miles east of Tiki Island, TX?
The coast 9 miles east of Tiki Island, TX is actually gaining ground, not losing it: USGS's transects measure 6.14 feet of accretion a year here, sediment building up rather than washing away. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 61.4 feet over the last decade.
What "Tiki Island" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Tiki Island, TX, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 29.33, -94.77. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
What 6.14 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 6.14 ft/yr accretion rate 9 miles east of Tiki Island, TX for 25 years would add roughly 154 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 17 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 0% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 2.53 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 1206 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Portsmouth, NH, 1631 miles away, ranks 969 of 1211 nationally for growth, 0.32 ft/yr, a small fraction of this stretch's own rate. 0.5 miles away, Tiki Island, TX is the nearest other measured stretch: accretion (beach growing) at 2.15 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Tiki Island itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.