How do you find the area of a lake?

Answer 1

To be able to calculate the area of the lake, you must know two of it's three dimensions in space, that is the length and width. Usually, nature does not create sqaure-, circular- or triangle shaped lakes by default, which makes our measuring of the lake a bit more tricky. However, we are usually able to estimate at certain parts of the lake (either by cutting a minor part away, or the reverse - the net sum of these approximations should cancel eachother out) to be able to calculate the area using a geometry drawn by straight lines. As long as you have straight lines, you will be able to make either triangles, or squares (or both), rendering you able to divide the lake into parts corresponding to squares or triangles of varying sizes.

After measuring these, the area will be calculated using the formulae for calculating area of a square and a triangle:

Square: Area = side length x side length

Triangle: Area = (base length*height)/2