Barnegat Light, NJ Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 1.8 miles southwest of Barnegat Light, NJ
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 1.8 miles southwest of Barnegat Light, NJ, the shoreline has been moving inland at 1.02 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 10.2 feet over the last decade.
What "Barnegat Light" means on this page
Barnegat Light, NJ is the nearest named place, 1.8 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 39.73, -74.13. 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.
What 1.02 ft/yr means over time
Run 1.8 miles southwest of Barnegat Light, NJ's 1.02 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 26 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 35 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.5 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 194 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Virginia Beach, VA sits at national rank 111 for erosion (2.4 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 231 miles from here. Barnegat Light, NJ, 1.8 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Barnegat Light itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.