Aspect is the downhill direction. Vegetation is frequently different on south and north facing slopes, due to differences in insolation and snow melt/retention and soil development, and ski resorts typically use ground differently depending on the aspect.
In geology, aspect is the dip direction.
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Aspect map created with Display parameter for a DEM set to aspect with 8 cardinal directions quadrant colorsafter Brewer and Marlow, 1993. | Aspect map created by the Create derivative grid
option.
This allows computations with the resulting grid, but has the same color display options. |
Aspect/slope merge DEM color merge, Eight aspects, three slope categories, and gray for nearly flat. |
You can use aspect in Terrain categories.
Last revision 11/26/2021