North Eastham, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 8.1 miles north of North Eastham, MA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 8.1 miles north of North Eastham, MA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.78 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 7.8 feet over the last decade.
What "North Eastham" means on this page
North Eastham, MA is the nearest named place, 8.1 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: 41.95, -70.00. 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.
What 0.78 ft/yr means over time
Run 8.1 miles north of North Eastham, MA's 0.78 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 20 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
Averaging 123 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 ±0.3 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 228. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Brigantine, NJ sits at national rank 123 for erosion (2.2 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 287 miles from here. 2.6 miles up the coast, Provincetown, MA shows 0.69 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just North Eastham itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.