Gilgo, NY Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 1.4 miles southwest of Gilgo, NY
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 1.4 miles southwest of Gilgo, NY, the shoreline has been moving inland at 3.5 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 35 feet over the last decade.
What "Gilgo" means on this page
Gilgo, NY is the nearest named place, 1.4 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 40.62, -73.40. 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 3.5 ft/yr means over time
Run 1.4 miles southwest of Gilgo, NY's 3.5 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 88 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
Where this fits nationally
This reading comes from 77 individual transects averaged together, 94% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.89 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 82. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Strathmere, NJ sits at national rank 215 for erosion (0.86 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 118 miles from here. Gilgo, NY, 1.3 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading severe erosion at 3.62 ft/yr.
One address near Gilgo: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.