You’ll now exclude the areas near roads and freeways as potential habitat locations because roads form a barrier for the gnatcatcher, and there are impacts on the habitat patches near roads. You’ll buffer the roads using the Distance field in the majorrds_shp attribute table, then erase the resultant buffer zones from the suitable vegetation patches.

To do so, expand the Proximity toolset located inside the Analysis Tools toolbox. Click and drag the Buffer tool into the display window, right-click the Buffer tool element that represents the Buffer tool in the model and click Open.

Click the Input Features dropdown arrow and click the layer majorrds_shp. Leave the default location for the Output Feature Class parameter and type “buffer_output” for the name. Click Field, click the Field dropdown arrow, and click Distance. The values in this field will be used for the width of the buffer. Click the Dissolve Type dropdown arrow and click LIST to list the dissolve fields. Check Distance in the Dissolve_Field(s) list. All polygons that share the same distance value will be dissolved. Leave the defaults for the rest of the parameter values and click OK.

Click Auto Layout then click Full Extent. Right-click the buffer_output derived data element and click Rename. Type “Roads Buffer” and click OK.

Right-click Roads Buffer and click Add To Display. Right-click the Buffer tool element and click Run to run the process.