Using the Merge tool and creating spatial relationships in ArcGIS Pro

Question

I downloaded two shapefile datasets from NASA Firm's archived fire data for my country of interest.

One is from the VIIRS S-NPP Satellite, and another is from the VIIRS NOAA-20 Satellite I see it gives me two shape files and I want to combine them into one layer.

will using the merge tool be appropriate to combine them into one layer without counting the same data point twice?

Also let's say I want to upload the combined layer to my ArcGIS Online account, and I want to put it in ArcGIS Dashboards where I can create a selector that filters the data points to different regions in my country of interest.

Is there a tool or spatial analysis method I have to do in ArcGIS Pro where it would allow me to filter the data points by specified regions in my country of interest so that when I upload the layer to ArcGIS Online and place it in a dashboard, I can use the regions I specified in my country as a selector to filter the data points by those specified regions?

AndrewCastilloTBSL · Answer

Really, ok it sounds like it could work I will try that.

Apologies if the question was hard to answer without knowing the data sets in mind, I did just upload them if that helps.

AndrewCastilloTBSL · Answer

If anyone is curious about the datasets, I'm working with in relation to my question its these three.

DL_FIRE_J1V-C2_350773.zip

DL_FIRE_SV-C2_350774.zip

Belize.zip

JohannesLindner · Answer

This is a little hard to answer without knowing the datasets...

Merge basically creates a new feature class and copies each feature from your input datasets into that new fc. So if your input fcs have points at the same locations, they will be inserted twice.

If that's the case, a join might be a better option.

Add Spatial Join creates a join based on location. If your points are overlapping / near each other, you can use that.

If your points (somehow) aren't related spatially but have a common attribute, you can use Add Join to join the datasets on that attribute.

The join only exists in the current map, the input datasets won't be affected. To permanently store the join, you can use Export Features.

Is there a tool or spatial analysis method I have to do in ArcGIS Pro where it would allow me to filter the data points by specified regions in my country of interest

If the points don't have a region attribute, you can get it by Intersecting or Spatial Joining the points with a polygon fc of your regions.