Chatham, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 1.6 miles south of Chatham, MA?
1.6 miles south of Chatham, MA: USGS's transects didn't pick up a trend here that beats the survey's own uncertainty. That's the majority case nationally, and for this stretch specifically it means the coast is holding, not that the data failed to find anything.
What "Chatham" means on this page
This is a roughly 3.5-mile stretch of coast, not one address or parcel - USGS's own transects run every few hundred feet, but that's finer than any one property needs, so this page reports the stretch nearest Chatham, MA. Centered near 41.65°N, 69.97°W. 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.
What backs this reading up
75 transects feed this segment's number; 29% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 6.05 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.6 ft/yr reading would land it 1047 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 1015 nationally for growth belongs to Mexico Beach, FL, 1180 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.47 ft/yr. 1.6 miles up the coast, Chatham, MA shows the same lack of a significant trend.
One address near Chatham: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.