Chatham, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 3.2 miles south of Chatham, MA
The coast 3.2 miles south of Chatham, MA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
What "Chatham" means on this page
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Chatham, MA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 41.63°N, 69.98°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.
How solid is this number
Averaging 34 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±11.21 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.86 ft/yr reading would land it 214 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Gearhart, OR, 2654 miles away, ranks 1167 of 1211 nationally for growth, 2.24 ft/yr. 1.6 miles up the coast, Chatham, MA shows the same lack of a significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Chatham itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.