What's the difference between slope baseline and slope neighborhood distance?

[MiniR]

When I think of slope baseline, I think of the definition as "the distance over which the slope is calculated." So, for example, if you have a 5 m/pixel DEM, you can create a 10 m baseline slope by calculating the slope over multiple pixels. I was trying to find a way to do this in ArcGIS Pro when I saw that the surface parameters tool has a "neighborhood distance" parameter. After looking through the documentation, I see that it seems to be what I'm looking for, but I'm unsure if the baseline and neighborhood distance are the same. Does anyone know whether these are the same and whether there's a way to derive a slope raster at a different baseline than the original DEM resolution?

[tlopezcantu]

Hello MiniR,

If the baseline slope means to calculate slope over a specific distance, then Surface Parameters tool neighborhood distance would be equivalent.

When Surface Parameters tool calculates slope at a target cell, it uses the neighboring cells within the neighborhood distance value.

The neighborhood distance default value is the cell size (or resolution) of the input surface raster (DEM), that would be equivalent to using the 3 by 3 window centered at the target cell. If using double the cell size, then its equivalent to using a 5 by 5 window centered at the target cell, and so on. In other words, this parameter allows you to calculate slope over distances other than the DEM cell size (resolution).

Please give it a try and reach out if you have any questions on the results or how the neighborhood distance parameter work.

Thank you,