North Eastham, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 2.7 miles northeast of North Eastham, MA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 2.7 miles northeast of North Eastham, MA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.97 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 9.7 feet over the last decade.
What "North Eastham" means on this page
North Eastham, MA is the nearest named place, 2.7 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: 41.85, -69.96. 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.
What 0.97 ft/yr means over time
Run 2.7 miles northeast of North Eastham, MA's 0.97 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 24 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 116 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 ±0.56 ft/yr. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 200. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 142 nationally for erosion belongs to Stowell, TX, 1598 miles from this stretch, measured at 1.83 ft/yr, 1.9x this stretch's rate. 2.8 miles away, North Eastham, MA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.98 ft/yr.
North Eastham, MA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.