Chincoteague, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 4.6 miles northeast of Chincoteague, VA?
Unusual good news for this stretch: the shoreline 4.6 miles northeast of Chincoteague, VA has grown by a measured 1.04 feet a year on average, per USGS's long-term transect data for this section. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 10.4 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
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 Chincoteague, VA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 37.99, -75.29. USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2007-2009, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
What 1.04 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 1.04 ft/yr accretion rate 4.6 miles northeast of Chincoteague, VA for 25 years would add roughly 26 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
What backs this reading up
97 transects feed this segment's number; 4% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.42 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 1111. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Atlantic Beach, NY, 198 miles away, ranks 1170 of 1211 nationally for growth, 2.35 ft/yr, 2.3x this stretch's rate. Greenbackville, VA, 2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.45 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Chincoteague itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.