Hingham, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 2.7 miles northeast of Hingham, MA?
The coast 2.7 miles northeast of Hingham, MA has been retreating at a measured 0.15 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 1.5 feet over the last decade.
What "Hingham" means on this page
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 Hingham, MA. Centered near 42.26°N, 70.85°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 0.15 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 2.7 miles northeast of Hingham, MA would retreat roughly 4 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
42 transects feed this segment's number; 98% of them individually measured retreat. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.12 ft/yr. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 560 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Dulac, LA sits at national rank 14 for erosion (13.82 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1440 miles from here. Hingham, MA, 1.5 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Hingham itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.