buffer - Buffering with physical barrier using ArcGIS Desktop?

I don't think it is possible, but I'm looking for a way to stop my buffer at a certain physical barrier.

For example, I have point near a river and I'm creating a buffer around my point that is larger than the river-point distance. So, I'm buffering on the other side of the river.

I can erase my buffer polygon with my river polygon and then erase what's on the other side, but I have ~50 sites, with a couple thousands points total so that's a lot of cleaning.

Any ideas?

Answer

If I understand the question correctly, I would perform the buffer as normal, then intersect your buffer result with your physical barrier features (rivers?). Then do a select by location to select the features in the intersect results that do not touch your points. Delete these, and you are done. It is essentially what you are already doing manually, but in an automated fashion.