general, west of Cape Fear River, standard deviations are less than 2.5 m/year 

 and exceed 5 -m/year only in the vicinity of inlets. At Tubbs Inlet, standard 

 deviation reaches a maximum of 22 m/year. 



107. East of Cape Fear River and north of Ca>pe Fear (Map 32), patterns 

 of average movement and standard deviation change. Average movement increases 

 in magnitude, ranging from 5-m/year accretion to 6-m/year erosion. Bald Head 

 Island is strongly accretional on its western end, but becomes erosional as 

 Cape Fear is approached. North of Cape Fear, erosion predominates to New 

 Inlet. The updrift side of New Inlet is accretional. Standard deviation 

 around and north of Cape Fear is similar to the barrier island zone, 



reaches 1, 2, and 3. Maximum deviations (greater than ±5 m/year) occur near 

 inlets, and central portions of islands tend to be more stable. This trend is 

 not clear at New Inlet, which has migrated since 1852. For the entire reach, 

 erosion clearly predominates over accretion during the 1852 to 1982 span. 



108. Maximum net movement is highest north of Cape Fear, exceeding 

 600 m in the 1852 to 1982 span (Figure 48). West of Cape Fear River, maximum 

 movements do not exceed 200 m except in the vicinity of inlets. Magnitude of 

 maximum movement is greater than the arcuate strand zone, but less than the 

 barrier island zone. Peaks of maximum movement correlate with inlets. 



109. West of Cape Fear River, division of the average net movement data 

 into three periods reveals a behavior similar to reach 6 (Figure 49). Erosion 

 and accretion appear to alternate from one period to the next. East of Cape 

 Fear River, erosion seems to predominate during all three time intervals. The 

 magnitude of erosion appears greatest prior to 1965. Accretion is generally 

 limited to the immediate vicinity of inlets. Average net shoreline change for 

 each survey interval for every beach and island in reach 7 is presented in 

 Table 10. 



110. Summarizing shoreline movement over reach 7 demonstrates just how 

 similar it is to reach 6 (Figure 50) . If the transects around and north of 

 Cape Fear (Map 32) are separated out of the summary, the remainder of the 

 shoreline is even more similar to reach 6 (Figure 51) . Most of the shoreline 

 west of Cape Fear is stable (78.5 percent) with only small percentages showing 

 long-term accretion (11.9) or erosion (9.6 percent). The shoreline east of 



95 



