Girdletree, MD Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 10.3 miles east of Girdletree, MD?
USGS's shoreline-change data puts this stretch, 10.3 miles east of Girdletree, MD, at 0.52 feet of erosion a year on average, a long-term rate for this specific ~3.5-mile section, not one storm's damage. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 5.2 feet over the last decade.
What "Girdletree" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Girdletree, MD, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 38.10, -75.21. 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 0.52 ft/yr means over time
Run 10.3 miles east of Girdletree, MD's 0.52 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 13 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
118 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.27 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 293 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Ship Bottom, NJ, 120 miles away, ranks 182 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 1.18 ft/yr, 2.3x this stretch's rate. 1.9 miles up the coast, Girdletree, MD shows 0.4 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Girdletree itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.