Old Orchard Beach, ME Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 0.3 miles north of Old Orchard Beach, ME
The coast 0.3 miles north of Old Orchard Beach, ME is actually gaining ground, not losing it: USGS's transects measure 1.28 feet of accretion a year here, sediment building up rather than washing away. At that rate, the shoreline has gained roughly 12.8 feet over the last decade.
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 Old Orchard Beach, ME, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 43.54, -70.36. 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 1.28 ft/yr means over time
Holding the 1.28 ft/yr accretion rate 0.3 miles north of Old Orchard Beach, ME for 25 years would add roughly 32 feet of shoreline, again assuming nothing about the local sediment supply changes.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 66 individual transects averaged together, 0% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 1.2 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 1132 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 1029 nationally for growth belongs to Dillon Beach, CA, 2728 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.53 ft/yr, 0.4x this stretch's rate. Old Orchard Beach, ME, 1.4 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, itself no significant trend.
Not this whole stretch, just Old Orchard Beach itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.