What operation removes areas that overlap erase features in GIS analysis?

The operation that removes areas that overlap with erase features in GIS analysis is known as the erase operation. This function is specifically designed to take an input layer and remove any geographic features that fall within the specified boundaries of another layer, known as the erase layer.

When using the erase tool, the output will only contain features from the input layer that do not intersect with features from the erase layer. This operation is particularly useful when you want to exclude certain areas from your analysis or visualization, allowing you to refine the data to meet specific criteria.

For instance, if you have a layer of land use and you want to eliminate urban areas that fall within a national park boundary, the erase function will take the land use layer and remove any land use classifications that overlap with the national park layer, resulting in a cleaner and more focused dataset that highlights only those areas not covered by the park.

The other operations mentioned have different purposes: clipping extracts features that fall within a defined boundary, intersect creates a new feature that includes only the areas shared by two layers, and merging combines different layers without cutting out overlapping areas.