Virginia Beach, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 5.3 miles north of Virginia Beach, VA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 5.3 miles north of Virginia Beach, VA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Virginia Beach" means on this page
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 Virginia Beach, VA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 36.85, -75.99. Survey years: 2007-2009, method LRR, from USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic shoreline-change assessment. That's how current the data is here, real, but not a live feed, since a shoreline survey is a major undertaking, not an annual check-in.
What backs this reading up
Averaging 109 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 66% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. Uncertainty on this specific number: 0.36 ft/yr either side. The unadjusted figure here, -0.06 ft/yr, would place it 696 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 1077 nationally for growth belongs to Florence, OR, 2543 miles from this stretch, measured at 0.8 ft/yr. Virginia Beach, VA, 2.9 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading slight erosion at 0.54 ft/yr.
Virginia Beach, VA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.