GIS 5100 Least Cost Path Analysis

This lab was conducted as the follow up to the prior blog on suitability analysis. For the first part of this portion of the lab we were given the task of finding the least cost path for a pipeline and generating a corridor analysis. We had to factor in slope, river crossings and river proximity. The goal is to find the least costly projected path for pipeline construction. The layout below illustrates the least cost path.

For the last portion of the lab we were give the scenario of being a Park Ranger in the Coronado National Forest and it was out job to model the potential movement of black bears between two protected areas. To create our corridor we had to factor in distances to roads focusing on those areas farthest from the roadways. Secondly, we needed to find areas of mid-elevation, and lastly we needed to find land cover that was made up of specific types of forest and vegetation. We began by reclassifying to create suitability rasters, Next, we used the weighted overlay to combine the suitability rasters we created. A new concept for me was introduced at this point. When creating our cost surface we had to invert the suitability model. Once this was accomplished we began working with the corridor analysis tool.