I'm on a steep learnig curve here, so aplogies if my question is a one-banana problem.
In ArcGIS 10 I have a contour layer that was generated from an ESR ASCII raster file (batyhmetry of the South Pacific). I also have a point layer (indicating certain seabird breeding locations). For each point I produced 20km buffer zones. So far so good.
What I need to do now, is clip the circular buffer zones so that only the buffer regions between two contour lines remain (in my the case 0m and 150m isolines).
Is there a way in ArcGIS to clip/remove the buffer zones that are outside the 0-150m contours?
Best Answer
If you have isolines as polyline feature class then I see next steps here:
NOTE1: I assuming that you have enclosed polylines of 0m and 150m isolines and that 150m isolines is situated inside 0m. Otherwise you need to enclose isolines and choose the right order of erasing in step4. Also take a look at FME software - from my experience some of complex data processing tasks can be performed much more quicker and easier than with ArcGIS tools.
NOTE2: Tool Erase (Analysis) needs ArcInfo license.