Fenwick Island, DE Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.1 miles southwest of Fenwick Island, DE
The coast 1.1 miles southwest of Fenwick Island, DE has been retreating at a measured 0.52 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 5.2 feet over the last decade.
What "Fenwick Island" 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 Fenwick Island, DE. Centered near 38.45°N, 75.07°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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.52 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 1.1 miles southwest of Fenwick Island, DE would retreat roughly 13 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
117 transects feed this segment's number; 93% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.45 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 294. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 523 nationally for erosion belongs to Montauk, NY, 248 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.18 ft/yr, 0.3x this stretch's rate. Ocean City, MD, 2.3 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
One address near Fenwick Island: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.