Vineyard Haven, MA Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA
Averaged across every transect USGS ran 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA, the shoreline has been moving inland at 0.24 feet a year, a real measured rate, not a regional estimate applied to this stretch. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 2.4 feet over the last decade.
The grain of this number
Vineyard Haven, MA is the nearest named place, 13.8 miles away, to a ~3.5-mile stretch of coast USGS has surveyed - the reading below covers that whole stretch, not a single property in it. Segment center: 41.35, -70.83. 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.
What 0.24 ft/yr means over time
Run 13.8 miles southwest of Vineyard Haven, MA's 0.24 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 6 feet of further retreat, assuming nothing changes, which is exactly the assumption a seawall or nourishment project exists to break.
How solid is this number
This reading comes from 25 individual transects averaged together, 100% of which measured erosion rather than growth. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.11 ft/yr either side. This segment ranks 453 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Rank 539 nationally for erosion belongs to North Scituate, MA, 61 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.17 ft/yr, 0.7x this stretch's rate. 1.1 miles away, Vineyard Haven, MA is the nearest other measured stretch: slight erosion at 0.43 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.