North Scituate, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 1.3 miles north of North Scituate, MA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 1.3 miles north of North Scituate, MA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.17 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 1.7 feet over the last decade.
What "North Scituate" means on this page
North Scituate, MA is the nearest named place, 1.3 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: 42.23, -70.76. 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 0.17 ft/yr means over time
Run 1.3 miles north of North Scituate, MA's 0.17 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 29 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: 0.14 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 539 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Port St. Joe, FL sits at national rank 147 for erosion (1.72 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1186 miles from here. 2.4 miles away, North Scituate, MA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.26 ft/yr.
One address near North Scituate: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.