Girdletree, MD Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 9.6 miles east of Girdletree, MD
The coast 9.6 miles east of Girdletree, MD has been retreating at a measured 0.4 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 4 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 Girdletree, MD. Centered near 38.08°N, 75.23°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.4 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 9.6 miles east of Girdletree, MD would retreat roughly 10 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
How solid is this number
Averaging 12 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.21 ft/yr. This segment ranks 349 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 53 nationally for erosion belongs to Dulac, LA, 1082 miles from this stretch, measured at 5.08 ft/yr, many times over this stretch's own rate. 1.9 miles up the coast, Girdletree, MD shows 0.52 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.