Vineyard Haven, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 13.1 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 13.1 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
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 Vineyard Haven, MA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 41.31, -70.77. 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
48 transects feed this segment's number; 98% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.21 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, -0.19 ft/yr, would place it 509 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 953 nationally for growth belongs to Ferndale, CA, 2756 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.26 ft/yr. Vineyard Haven, MA, 0.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading moderate erosion at 1.14 ft/yr.
Vineyard Haven, MA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.