FMgt 131n: Geo-spatial Methods in Forestry

Dr. Dennis P. Peque

COMPUTING AREA OF POLYGON

1. Load desired polygon shapefile using Add vector layer.

2. Open the Attribute Table to check the data e.g. if area of polygon is already given. Otherwise,
we will calculate the area of each polygon.
3. In the layer list, right click or double click the layer and go to Properties. Click Source and check
the assigned CRS. By default, you find EPSG 4326-WGS 84. This is not the projected CRS. We
need to convert the shapefile to the projected one otherwise we cannot compute the area in
sq.m.
4. Go to Vector and click Data Management Tool. Select Reproject Layer. The Input Layer should be
the polygon shape file from which we want to calculate the area. In the Target CRS, select WGS
84/UTM 51N, then, Run. A Reprojected Layer will now appear in the screen.
5. Right-click the Reprojected layer and go to Open Attribute Table.
6. Now click the Field Calculator. Tick Create a new field, and in the output field name, type Area.
In the Output field type, use Decimal number. Double click Geometry and select $area. Click OK.
7. Go to Attribute Table and check if an Area column has been added.
8. If you want to copy the data in MS Excel, highlight all data and then click Copy using the copy
icon.
9. Open and Excel window, and then right click and paste using the Match Destination Formatting.
Then save the new data in your preferred folder.

TASK

1. Load a shape file. Here use Leyte municipalities file.

2. Open attribute table examine if an area column is given. Also examine the headings of each
column.
3. For area calculation we need projected coordinates. Right-click the layer, go to Properties, then
select Information. Now check the CRS.
4. Go back to Open Attribute Table and perform similar operations above.
5. To convert sq.m. to sq.km. create new field. Type Area_sqkm in the name, and for the Type
select decimal number.
6. In the field calculator, select update existing field. Choose Field and values (group) and then
click. You will find the different header labels. Select area.
7. Divide area by 1000000. If the area is to be converted into hectares just divide the area by
10000. Click the arrow button, and select Area_sqkm.
8. Click OK.