Misquamicut, RI Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 0.5 miles northeast of Misquamicut, RI
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 0.5 miles northeast of Misquamicut, RI, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.15 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 1.5 feet over the last decade.
What this reading actually covers
Misquamicut, RI is the nearest named place, 0.5 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: 41.32, -71.82. 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 0.15 ft/yr means over time
Run 0.5 miles northeast of Misquamicut, RI's 0.15 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 4 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
Where this fits nationally
Averaging 24 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.11 ft/yr. This segment ranks 565 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Bokeelia, FL, 1169 miles away, ranks 219 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 0.81 ft/yr, 5.4x this stretch's rate. 1.3 miles up the coast, Weekapaug, RI shows 0.12 ft/yr of eroding.
Misquamicut, RI on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.