Essex, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2.5 miles northeast of Essex, MA
The coast 2.5 miles northeast of Essex, 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.
The grain of this number
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Essex, MA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 42.67°N, 70.74°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
39 transects feed this segment's number; 87% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.58 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.31 ft/yr reading would land it 401 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Fields Landing, CA sits at national rank 1157 for growth (2.04 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2716 miles from here. Essex, MA, 0.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Essex, MA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.