Vineyard Haven, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA
The coast 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA has been retreating at a measured 0.43 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 4.3 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
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 Vineyard Haven, MA. Centered near 41.33°N, 70.82°W. USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment last surveyed this stretch through 2007-2009, computing the rate with its LRR method. Other US regions were surveyed in different years, sometimes decades apart, so this page states its own rather than implying one national vintage.
25 years at this rate
If 0.43 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA would retreat roughly 11 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
This reading comes from 54 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.11 ft/yr. This segment ranks 335 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Grand Isle, LA sits at national rank 4 for erosion (24.08 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 1379 miles from here. Vineyard Haven, MA, 1.1 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.24 ft/yr.
Not this whole stretch, just Vineyard Haven itself: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal is USGS's own live version of this data.