Ship Bottom, NJ Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 0.3 miles southwest of Ship Bottom, NJ
1.18 feet a year: that is the measured retreat rate USGS's transects show for the coast 0.3 miles southwest of Ship Bottom, NJ, averaged across the full historical record surveyed here. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 11.8 feet over the last decade.
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 Ship Bottom, NJ into one ~3.5-mile reading rather than picking a single arbitrary line to represent the area. Centered near 39.64°N, 74.19°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.
25 years at this rate
If 1.18 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 0.3 miles southwest of Ship Bottom, NJ would retreat roughly 30 more feet, a projection, not a certainty: erosion rates shift with storms, sediment supply and any armoring built in the meantime.
What backs this reading up
This reading comes from 95 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 1.01 ft/yr either side. Sorted from fastest erosion to fastest growth across all 1211 measured segments nationally, this one lands at 182. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 239 nationally for erosion belongs to Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, 2575 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.72 ft/yr, 0.6x this stretch's rate. Surf City, NJ, 2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading moderate erosion at 1.52 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Ship Bottom itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.