Abstract
The Earth’s surface is uneven, and conventional area calculation methods are based on the assumption that the projection plane area can be obtained without considering the actual undulation of the Earth’s surface and by simplifying the Earth’s shape to be a standard ellipsoid. However, the true surface area is important for investigating and evaluating land resources. In this study, the authors propose a new method based on an efficient vector-raster overlay algorithm (VROA-based method) to calculate the surface areas of irregularly shaped land use patches. In this method, a surface area raster file is first generated based on the raster-based digital elevation model (raster-based DEM). Then, a vector-raster overlay algorithm (VROA) is used that considers the precise clipping of raster cells using the vector polygon boundary. Xiantao City, Luotian County, and the Shennongjia Forestry District, which are representative of a plain landform, a hilly topography, and a mountain landscape, respectively, are selected to calculate the surface area. Compared with a traditional method based on triangulated irregular networks (TIN-based method), our method significantly reduces the processing time. In addition, our method effectively improves the accuracy compared with another traditional method based on raster-based DEM (raster-based method). Therefore, the method satisfies the requirements of large-scale engineering applications.
Highlights
The surface area refers to the actual area of the Earth’s surface and considers topographical conditions
The vector-raster overlay algorithm (VROA)-based method was designed based on both raster data and vector data, solving the edge-effect problem that occurs during raster-vector analysis
A method based on a vector-raster overlay analysis algorithm was proposed and applied to obtain the surface area statistics of land-use polygons in different landforms, using the efficient and accurate clipping of raster cells by the vector polygon boundary
Summary
The surface area refers to the actual area of the Earth’s surface and considers topographical conditions. In bio-geographical studies, the biodiversity is significantly increased by heterogeneity and the separation of terrain [6,7]. These methods do not distinguish whether humans or a variety of other creatures in nature live within any particular topographic relief surface [6,8]. Given the high fluctuation of the Earth’s surface, its true surface area will be quite different from an ideal ellipsoid in mountainous and hilly areas. The use of ellipsoidal areas alone does not satisfy the needs of actual resource survey applications, such as land and forestry surveys [9]
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