Essex, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 4.2 miles south of Essex, MA
The coast 4.2 miles south 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.
What this reading actually covers
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 42.58°N, 70.76°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
This reading comes from 29 individual transects averaged together, 24% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.09 ft/yr either side. Taken at face value, this segment's raw 0.06 ft/yr reading would land it 824 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: Longport, NJ, 301 miles away, ranks 1168 of 1211 nationally for growth, 2.33 ft/yr. Gloucester, MA, 1.4 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.18 ft/yr.
One address near Essex: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.