We try to improve upon the existing similar datasets in terms of geographical coverage, quality of measurement and number of variables provided. The GeoDist webpage provides two distinct files: a country-specific one (geo_cepii)and a dyadic one (dist_cepii) including a set of different distance and common dummy variables used in gravity equations to identify particular links between countries such as colonial past, common languages, contiguity. For most of them, different calculations of “intra-national distances” are also available. BMC Bioinformatics (2016) 17:204 DOI 10.1186/s1285-0 etc. We have calculated different measures of bilateral distances available for most countries across the world (225 countries in the current version of the database). GeoDist provides several geographical variables, in particular bilateral distances measured using citylevel data to assess the geographic distribution of population inside each nation.

GeoDist makes available the exhaustive set of gravity variables used in Mayer and Zignago (2005). Usage geodist(dat, inf.replaceInf, count.pathsTRUE, predecessorsFALSE, ignore.evalTRUE, na. Where geodesics do not exist, the value in inf.replaceis substituted for the distance in question. I tried to use GEDI data but couldnt work out how to use this dataset. Description geodistuses a BFS to find the number and lengths of geodesics between all nodes of dat.

Notes on CEPII’s distances measures: The GeoDist database I need a global above-ground biomass raster dataset from which I will subset a certain area of southeast Asia.

Geodist bioinformatics 2016