r.buffer problem/musing

[Simon Cox]

I disagree with your objections.  
If you tried to buffer each separately, then a variety of 
possibilities exist for how to classify areas which fall 
within the buffers of two different types.  Going through the 
multiple procedure you suggest, finishing with mapcalc, is probably the 
best way to cover all the possibilities in that.  

Don't worry about all the extra files that are created - reclass files 
don't take much space.  

If you find it tedious, I think that this is probably the time to learn 
how to write scripts ;-)

Simon Cox