Calculating overlap percent of multiple features in same layer using QGIS

Question

I'm trying to find a way of identifying features in a layer that are at least 50% within another feature in the same layer so that I can remove them.

I've discovered SAGA's Polygon self-intersection which creates a new feature that delineates the overlapped section, but this isn't quite what I want. I found some other methods where people manage to delete the overlapped section between features, but again, I'm looking to be able to select the entire feature and not just the overlapped portion. Deleting slivers won't work either as not all overlaps are particularly small.

Answer 1

You can identify the IDs to be deleted using a virtual layer. the idea is to join the layer with itself where the polygons intersects - but excluding intersection with the same polygon -, then to compute the intersection area and to compare with the original area.

Go the the menu layer / add layer / add-edit virtual layer and enter the following query.

select p1.id
from myPolygonLayer p1
join myPolygonLayer p2
 on st_intersects(p1.geometry,p2.geometry)
where 
 p1.id != p2.id
 and st_area(st_intersection(p1.geometry,p2.geometry)) / st_area(p1.geometry) >= 0.5

Answer 2

You can use QGIS expression with select by expression to select those polygons that A) overlap with another polygon of the same layer and where B) the overlapping area is larger than a cetrtain percentage of the polygon - let's say at least 50%.

Use this expression:

array_max (
    array_foreach(
        overlay_intersects( 
            @layer, 
            $geometry
        ),
        area (
            intersection (
                $geometry, 
                @element
            )
        )/$area
    )
) >=0.5  -- here: overlap of 50% or more - change this value accordingly (between 0 and 1)

Polygons selected by this expression in yellow