Hampton, NH Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 3.3 miles northeast of Hampton, NH?
The coast 3.3 miles northeast of Hampton, NH has been retreating at a measured 0.24 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 2.4 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 Hampton, NH. Centered near 42.97°N, 70.77°W. The survey behind it runs to 2007-2009, in USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
25 years at this rate
If 0.24 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 3.3 miles northeast of Hampton, NH would retreat roughly 6 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
Averaging 2 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.17 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 454. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Modest Town, VA, 435 miles away, ranks 78 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 3.63 ft/yr, many times over this stretch's own rate. 1.7 miles up the coast, Portsmouth, NH shows the same lack of a significant trend.
One address near Hampton: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.