Extracting data from shapefile for polygon

Question

I am working on my masters thesis trying to determine habitat prefrences for wild turkeys. I have polygon shapefiles which represent areas that turkeys used during different breeding periods. These polygons are all circular and vary from 300m to 1500m radius.

I have data to be extracted in the form of polygon shapefiles that I need to extract for each of the above mentioned areas. For example, one of my habitat data shapefiles maps out areas that were burned. This is a polygon shapefile with 100% coverage. The shapefile has an attribute Y_N_U where Y= yes, N=no and U=unknown. For each of my used circles I need to extract how much area was burned, not burned, and is unknown (can be in actual meters squared or % of the area .

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

I would use union tool and union all the layers together.

Use select by attribute to and delete the polygons except for your target area (habitat polys).

Use dissolve tool on the above layer and run it with the "Y_N_U" attribute and the FID field of the habitat poly selected.

Then create a new field such as "Area_sqmeter". Run calculate geometry on that field - choose square meter for the unit.

Answer 2

Use the select by attribute tool under the selection button on top. After this select the area you want. Right click on layer's name in the table of contents. Go down to the "data" tab and when it expands, click on "extract data". Be sure to choose to extract what is selected and extract it to a new file geo database.

Then you can edit it from there at your heart's desire while the original is still there.