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Least-Cost Path/Evidence
Method evidence record

Least-Cost Path

Least-cost path analysis finds the route between two locations that minimizes accumulated travel cost across a landscape, rather than minimizing straight-line distance. By encoding terrain, slope, land cover, and other frictions into a cost surface and accumulating cost outward from a source, it identifies optimal corridors for roads, pipelines, trails, power lines, and wildlife movement — a core raster-GIS technique built on Dijkstra's shortest-path logic.

Sources recorded, not reviewed

Source record

Citations copied verbatim from the method’s source record. No claim-level verification is inferred from them.

Least-Cost Path / Cost-Distance Analysis
Taxonomic method record · process-pipeline / spatial-analysis
  • Dijkstra, E. W. (1959). A note on two problems in connexion with graphs. Numerische Mathematik, 1(1), 269–271. · DOI 10.1007/BF01386390
  • Douglas, D. H. (1994). Least-cost path in GIS using an accumulated cost surface and slopelines. Cartographica, 31(3), 37–51. · DOI 10.3138/D327-0323-2JUT-016M
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Curated claims

Claims persisted in the evidence ledger, each with its own assessment.

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Related methods

Generated from the method graph and shown as machine-suggested relations — no evidence claim is inferred.

Same method familyCA-Markovmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyGIS-MCDAmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.Same method familyLocation-Allocationmachine-suggested · Relational suggestion, not evidence.

Evidence status

Sources recorded, not reviewed

Bibliographic sources are present. Claim-level evidence review has not been performed.

Sources

2 recorded citations, copied from the method source record.

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