Cape Charles, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 11 miles south of Cape Charles, VA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 11 miles south of Cape Charles, VA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Cape Charles" 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 Cape Charles, VA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 37.10, -75.96. 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.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 51 individual transects averaged together, 53% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 2.88 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.23 ft/yr, would place it 464 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. Pajaro Dunes, CA sits at national rank 1011 for growth (0.45 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2506 miles from here. 2.8 miles up the coast, Cape Charles, VA shows 4.69 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Cape Charles itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.