Atlantic, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.7 miles southeast of Atlantic, VA?
1.68 feet a year: that is the measured retreat rate USGS's transects show for the coast 3.7 miles southeast of Atlantic, VA, averaged across the full historical record surveyed here. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 16.8 feet over the last decade.
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 Atlantic, VA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 37.87°N, 75.45°W. The survey behind it runs to 2007-2009, in USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic 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.
25 years at this rate
If 1.68 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 3.7 miles southeast of Atlantic, VA would retreat roughly 42 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
40 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.76 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 149. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Grand Isle, LA sits at national rank 25 for erosion (8.92 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1035 miles from here. Atlantic, VA, 1 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Atlantic itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.