From Sandy Hook to Cape May, New Jersey is a chain of narrow barrier islands pinned in place by beach fill while the sea climbs 4.25 mm a year at Atlantic City. We read the federal record — USGS shoreline change, NOAA tide gauges, FEMA flood maps — for any address on it.
Every figure below is drawn from a public USGS, NOAA or FEMA source and stamped with it — no estimates, no proprietary model.
Most of the shoreline is held artificially stable by beach fill, so the measured rate is modest — but the sand only stays because it is replaced.
The USGS National Assessment of Shoreline Change found long-term rates for the New England and Mid-Atlantic sandy coast averaging roughly −0.5 m/yr, with New Jersey's fastest retreat concentrated at inlet margins — near Barnegat, Absecon and Hereford inlets — where tidal currents and jetties move sand off the beach. New Jersey is also one of the most heavily nourished coasts in the country: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has placed well over 100 million cubic yards of sand on it. Strip the nourishment out and the underlying trend is landward.
USGS Open-File Report 2010-1118, National Assessment of Shoreline Change (Hapke et al.); USACE beach-nourishment records.At Atlantic City the sea has risen 4.25 mm a year since 1911 — about 1.39 feet per century, faster than the global average.
NOAA's tide gauge at Atlantic City (station 8534720) gives a relative sea-level trend of 4.25 ± 0.15 mm/yr over 1911–2024. The Mid-Atlantic "hotspot" sits where slowing Gulf Stream circulation and slow regional land sinking add to global rise, so New Jersey outpaces the planetary mean. For a low barrier island, a foot of added water is the difference between a storm that drains and one that doesn't.
NOAA Tides & Currents, relative sea level trend, Atlantic City NJ (8534720), 1911–2024.Most developed barrier islands fall in VE (coastal high-hazard, wave action) and AE (1%-annual-chance) zones, and post-Sandy remapping raised many base flood elevations.
After Hurricane Sandy, FEMA re-issued flood maps for the New Jersey coast, pushing VE zones inland and lifting base flood elevations on many oceanfront and bayfront blocks. Whether a parcel sits in VE, AE or X — and how far its first floor clears the base flood elevation — drives flood-insurance cost, lender requirements, and whether a rebuild must be elevated. We read the current National Flood Hazard Layer for the exact point.
FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer; post-Sandy coastal flood map revisions.That the barrier islands flood as a system: roughly 346,000 NJ homes were damaged or destroyed and losses ran to tens of billions of dollars.
Sandy made landfall near Brigantine on 29 October 2012. The surge overtopped dunes, cut new breaches, and pushed bay water into back-barrier neighborhoods far from the ocean. It is the reference event for every NJ coastal risk conversation — and the reason the state and the Corps now spend continuously to hold the line. A single address's exposure depends on its elevation, its dune, its distance to an inlet, and the condition of the fill in front of it.
State of New Jersey and FEMA Hurricane Sandy damage assessments, 2012–2013.Enter the address and Psammite assembles a Certificate of Coastal Impact for $99 — the USGS, NOAA and FEMA record for that exact parcel, in one screening.
Because published rates are reach-wide, no table gives a per-parcel number. Our method takes the point, pulls the nearest USGS DSAS transect for the long-term shoreline-change rate, applies the Atlantic City relative sea-level trend, reads the FEMA zone and base flood elevation, and compares storm-surge exposure to the design flood elevation — every figure sourced. It is a screening assessment, not a survey, and it is the starting packet a coastal engineer would otherwise rebuild by hand.
Psammite Certificate of Coastal Impact — USGS DSAS, NOAA Tides & Currents, FEMA NFHL.Records © USGS / NOAA / FEMA, public domain. Screening only — confirm present conditions with a recent survey or field inspection.
The $99 Certificate of Coastal Impact reads the full federal record for your parcel in a single screening.