Lesson 43-1

METHODS OF DETERMINING AREA

Methods of Determining Area

• An important objectives of most land surveys is the
determination of the area of tracts of land.
• In Plane surveying, the area is not the actual area of
the land surface but is taken as its projection upon a
horizontal plane.
• Areas of land also come in different shapes. Some
may be in the shape of regular geometric figures
such as a triangle, square, or parallelogram.
• Others may be quite irregular and may be bounded
entirely by curved boundaries.
• The hectare (Ha) is mostly used SI unit of area.

Methods of Determining Area

 COMPUTATION OF AREA
• One of the main objectives of surveying is to compute the areas
and volumes
• Generally, the lands will be of irregular shaped polygons
• There are formulae readily available for regular polygons like,
triangle, rectangle, square and other polygons
• But for determining the areas of irregular polygons, different
methods are used
• Coordinate method is popularly used, in land surveying for
computing catchment area, drainage area, cross section of rivers
, channels etc.OF AREA
COMPUTATION

Measurement of area is important in all aspects of land and

resource management for example:
• To include acreage in a property deed
• Determine the area of sections of interest (fields, lakes,
watersheds)
• Determine the area to estimate required materials (area to
be paved, area to be seeded, area to surfaced)

Methods of determining area

• In land surveying, you should regard land areas as
horizontal surfaces, not as the actual area of the
ground surface. You always measure horizontal
distances.
• You may determine areas either directly from field
measurements, or indirectly from a plan or map.

Double Parallel Distance

METHODS USED IN DETERMINING AREA:

Trapezoid
Triangles
al rule

Simpson’s
one-third Coordinate DMD or DPD
Rule Method Method

Coordinate
Planimeter
Squares

Methods of determining area