arcgis-10.2arcgis-desktopdistanceproximity
I want to calculate the distance to the nearest coastline from my site locations (point shapefile), and possibly the max distance as well. I am using ArcGIS 10.2 and I already have a shapefile of the coastline (lines), but I don't want to do it manually for each site using the "measuring" tool as I have hundreds of sites.
How else could I do it, perhaps using Euclidean Distance or Zonal stats?
If you can't get v.distance to work (it should be available through the GRASS plugin), you could try the NNJoin plugin that I uploaded to the QGIS plugin repository recently.
The NNJoin plugin does not use spatial indexes for line layers, so it is not practical if you have large datasets.
Edit: The current version of the NNJoin plugin can use spatial indexes also for polygon and line layers, so its performance has improved for large line and polygon datasets.
I would approach this as follows:
Convert your polygons into lines (by which each edge of the polygons - a line between the consequent vertices - will become a line feature in the output feature class.) After the conversion, the output lines will preserve their "parent" polygon ID. Use GP tool: Feature To Line.
Take each point and then find out which line feature is the closest. By finding out this and the distance, you will be able to join points to the polygons thereafter based on the source polygon ID. This will tell to what source polygon each point has min distance (if needed). Use GP tool: Near.
In this example, I am finding to which parcel every water fitting is closest to:
Best Answer
You should use the Near GP tool for that (Advanced license only).
It will add two fields to your point shapefile: one for distance to the nearest coastline feature and another for the coastline feature ObjectID.