Provincetown, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 6.1 miles east of Provincetown, MA
The coast 6.1 miles east of Provincetown, MA has been retreating at a measured 0.6 feet a year, USGS's own long-term rate for this stretch, built from historical shoreline positions rather than a single survey. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 6 feet over the last decade.
What "Provincetown" means on this page
This is a roughly 3.5-mile stretch of coast, not one address or parcel - USGS's own transects run every few hundred feet, but that's finer than any one property needs, so this page reports the stretch nearest Provincetown, MA. Centered near 42.03°N, 70.06°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 0.6 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 6.1 miles east of Provincetown, MA would retreat roughly 15 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
Where this fits nationally
60 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.46 ft/yr either side. Among the 1211 US coastal segments with a measurable trend, this one ranks 268 for erosion, 1 being the fastest-retreating coast in the dataset. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Stowell, TX sits at national rank 97 for erosion (2.92 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1592 miles from here. 2.1 miles up the coast, Provincetown, MA shows 0.63 ft/yr of eroding.
Not this whole stretch, just Provincetown itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.