Scituate, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 0.7 miles southeast of Scituate, MA?
The coast 0.7 miles southeast of Scituate, MA shows no statistically significant trend either way. USGS's transects measured a rate here, but it's smaller than the survey's own margin of error for this stretch, so calling it "eroding" or "growing" would overstate what the data actually shows.
What this reading actually covers
Nothing here is parcel-level. USGS's raw transects run every few hundred feet along the shore; this page averages the ones nearest Scituate, MA into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 42.17°N, 70.73°W. 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 backs this reading up
This reading comes from 11 individual transects averaged together, 55% of which measured erosion rather than growth. The published margin on this reading runs ±0.09 ft/yr. Taken at face value, this segment's raw -0.05 ft/yr reading would land it 708 of 1211 nationally - a number worth ignoring, since it's statistical noise rather than a real trend. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Warrenton, OR sits at national rank 1196 for growth (4.64 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2603 miles from here. 1.9 miles up the coast, Scituate, MA shows 0.17 ft/yr of eroding.
One address near Scituate: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.