Beverly, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.9 miles east of Beverly, MA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 1.9 miles east of Beverly, MA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Beverly" 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 Beverly, MA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 42.56, -70.81. Survey years: 2007-2009, method LRR, from USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 18 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 50% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.18 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, 0 ft/yr, would place it 772 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Chatham, MA, 81 miles away, ranks 1203 of 1211 nationally for growth, 5.4 ft/yr. 3 miles up the coast, Essex, MA shows the same lack of a significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Beverly itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.