Land Distance from many coastal points to one point following the land route

Question

I have a lot of coastal points around Mediterranean sea and One point in South Africa.I want to calculate the distance from all of these Mediterranean points to the one in South Africa but only following the land.However, the distance tools measure this distance passing from the sea(for example for the south France points).

How I can measure this land distance route?

I have been advised to use the path distance tool,but it seems quite difficult for me.

May you explain me the steps or could I have another recommendation?

FelixIP · Answer 1 · 2016-12-16T02:50:16.893

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Mountain climbs free solution. Skills: ability to jump over rivers and canals.

Derive coast line, making sure the direction is correct: Use linear referencing tools to compute distance of travel along it: Applied for point in North Africa for demonstration purposes only.

edited Dec 16 '16 at 02:50

answered Dec 16 '16 at 02:24

FelixIP

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:33

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A couple of options come to mind:

Try a least cost path calculation using rasters, just make your land cells cost determinedly less than your water cells. See http://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/tool-reference/spatial-analyst/creating-the-least-cost-path.htm for more information.
There's also network analyst (http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/extensions/networkanalyst), an extension for ArcGIS Desktop, that could help to calculate this distance over a road network. Try using Open Street Map if you're in need of road data.

Alternatively, see this question for a couple of options using QGIS: Cost Distance Analyst In QGIS?

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:33

Community

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answered Dec 15 '16 at 14:15

rumski20

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for open street map data here is a good repository http://download.geofabrik.de/index.html – ziggy Dec 15 '16 at 15:02
a raster might be out of the question because of the how big the area is – ziggy Dec 15 '16 at 15:03
Actually i am quite new user of arcgis.Could you send me the steps?For example I do not know how to create make my land cells cost determinedly less than my water cells.I have already read the links you dent me before but they seem quite complicated for my case. – Sotiris Dec 15 '16 at 15:30
you have to use the reclassify tool. assign the higher values (for example if you choose 1-5) like 5 to the land and a 1 to the water – ziggy Dec 15 '16 at 15:40
These costs will force them to swim instead of walking – FelixIP Dec 16 '16 at 02:48
Put simply, here are the steps: 1) rasterize your vector data, 2) reclassify the raster as a) land (assign a high value) and b) water (assign a low value), 3) run create a least cost path from origin to destination, and (optionally) 4) vectorize your path raster. – rumski20 Dec 16 '16 at 16:55

Land Distance from many coastal points to one point following the land route

2 Answers2