Ocean City, MD Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 0.4 miles west of Ocean City, MD
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 0.4 miles west of Ocean City, MD, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What this reading actually covers
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Ocean City, MD, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 38.39, -75.08. 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 backs this reading up
This reading comes from 78 individual transects averaged together, 96% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.5 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, -0.28 ft/yr, would place it 413 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 1053 nationally for growth belongs to Seal Beach, CA, 2402 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.63 ft/yr. Ocean City, MD, 1.7 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Ocean City, MD on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.