Wachapreague, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 5.6 miles northeast of Wachapreague, VA?
The coast 5.6 miles northeast of Wachapreague, VA has been retreating at a measured 4.37 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 43.7 feet over the last decade.
What "Wachapreague" means on this page
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 Wachapreague, VA. Centered near 37.65°N, 75.60°W. 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.
25 years at this rate
If 4.37 ft/yr holds for the next 25 years, the coast 5.6 miles northeast of Wachapreague, VA would retreat roughly 109 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
110 transects feed this segment's number; 100% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±1.54 ft/yr. This segment ranks 64 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Gilgo, NY sits at national rank 82 for erosion (3.5 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 237 miles from here. 3.3 miles away, Pastoria, VA is the nearest other measured stretch: severe erosion at 6.78 ft/yr.
One address near Wachapreague: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.