I'm trying to exclude a distance of 2km from several built-up area/settlements as an exclusion area.
A little background, I extracted the built-up area from a land use cover map and converted it to polygons. Afterwards, I created a buffer of 2km but the buffer seems excessive; not that it's an error from the buffer function, but rather, the built-up area polygon consists of tiny polygons everywhere, and the buffer function applies the 2km distance to these tiny pieces as well blowing it out of proportion in a way.
How can I handle this type of file without allowing these tiny polygons that are not major settlements mess with the buffer result?
If I leave as it is (with the large buffers), it will greatly exaggerate the exclusion area and will leave me with a limited suitable area to work with.