Berlin, MD Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 6.8 miles southeast of Berlin, MD
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 6.8 miles southeast of Berlin, MD, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.94 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 9.4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Berlin, MD is the nearest named place, 6.8 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: 38.25, -75.15. 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 0.94 ft/yr means over time
Run 6.8 miles southeast of Berlin, MD's 0.94 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 24 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 118 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.64 ft/yr. This segment ranks 202 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Watch Hill, RI, 273 miles away, ranks 220 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 0.81 ft/yr, 0.9x this stretch's rate. 2.4 miles up the coast, West Ocean City, MD shows 3.43 ft/yr of eroding.
Berlin, MD on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.