GIS 5100 - Least-Cost Analysis

 This is my second blog post for Module 6 and the focus is Least-Cost analysis. We were tasked with performing an analysis and producing a map that models a corridor that black bears would use to travel between two protected areas in Coronado National Forest. To do this we had to take into consideration criteria that suits black bear habitats. As such the following is the criteria:

Criteria 1: Landcover best suited for black bear habitats, such as forested areas.

Criteria 2: Distance from roadways. The farther the better.

Criteria 3: Mid elevations. Ideally, 1200 to 2000 meters. 

My process included the following steps. To model the corridor that black bears would use to travel between the two protected areas in Coronado National Forest I first created a ranked raster for elevation and landcover using the reclassify tool, followed by performing a Euclidean distance on the roads and reclassification to rank them as well. The ranked rasters were then combined using the Weighted Overlay tool to create a suitability raster that incorporated the rasters at the following weights: Roads 20%, Landcover 60% and elevation 20%. To create the cost surface layer the resulting suitability raster was subtracted from 10. The cost surface was then used to create the two Cost Distance layers required to for the Corridor tool using the Cost Distance Tool. The Corridor tool was then run which resulted in a corridor raster. Finally, I symbolized the raster to display the modeled corridor. I chose to limit the corridor to a threshold of 6%. The more specific corridor levels are 4% and 2%. 

The results from this analysis are displayed in the map below.



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