West Ocean City, MD Coastal Erosion Rate
Shoreline change 4.6 miles south of West Ocean City, MD
USGS's shoreline-change data puts this stretch, 4.6 miles south of West Ocean City, MD, at 3.43 feet of erosion a year on average, a long-term rate for this specific ~3.5-mile section, not one storm's damage. At that rate, the shoreline has lost roughly 34.3 feet over the last decade.
What "West Ocean City" 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 West Ocean City, MD, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 38.28, -75.13. 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 3.43 ft/yr means over time
Run 4.6 miles south of West Ocean City, MD's 3.43 ft/yr rate forward 25 years and it implies about 86 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
Averaging 33 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 100% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±0.79 ft/yr. This segment ranks 85 of 1211 measured US coastal segments, ordered from fastest erosion to fastest growth. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. For scale: Corpus Christi, TX, 1474 miles away, ranks 169 of 1211 nationally for erosion, 1.38 ft/yr, 0.4x this stretch's rate. 1.9 miles up the coast, West Ocean City, MD shows 5.51 ft/yr of eroding.
One address near West Ocean City: the Coastal Change Hazards Portal zooms past this stretch to the underlying map.