Forked River, NJ Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 4.6 miles east of Forked River, NJ
The coast 4.6 miles east of Forked River, NJ has been retreating at a measured 0.93 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 9.3 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
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 Forked River, NJ. Centered near 39.85°N, 74.10°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 0.93 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 4.6 miles east of Forked River, NJ would retreat roughly 23 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
111 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.83 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 207. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 106 nationally for erosion belongs to Taylor Landing, TX, 1333 miles from this stretch, measured at 2.63 ft/yr, 2.8x this stretch's rate. Seaside Park, NJ, 3.5 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.66 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Forked River itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.