{"id":1693562,"date":"2022-08-23T16:58:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T23:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=1693562"},"modified":"2022-08-24T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T19:00:11","slug":"arcgis-pro-create-biodiversity-map-using-count-overlapping-features","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-create-biodiversity-map-using-count-overlapping-features","title":{"rendered":"Create a biodiversity map using Count Overlapping Features in ArcGIS Pro"},"author":314022,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[23341],"tags":[741031,410642,24321],"industry":[],"product":[36561],"class_list":["post-1693562","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analytics","tag-biodiversity","tag-environment","tag-geoprocessing","product-arcgis-pro"],"acf":{"authors":[{"ID":314022,"user_firstname":"Margaret","user_lastname":"Crawford","nickname":"Margaret Crawford","user_nicename":"mcrawford","display_name":"Margaret Crawford","user_email":"mcrawford@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2022-06-28 19:13:27","user_description":"Margaret is a Product Engineer on the Geoprocessing team. Her passion for GIS began with her interest in human-environmental relationships, and her graduate thesis studied the growing impact of flood-induced cascading disasters caused by sea level rise. Margaret leverages her foundation in research methodologies and spatial analysis techniques in her role at Esri, where she creates written content and demonstrations on features in ArcGIS Pro. She also contributes to refining and redesigning geoprocessing tools and functions. In her personal life, Margaret is a loving cat parent to three beautiful cats, and enjoys swimming and snowboarding.","user_avatar":""}],"short_description":"Use the Count Overlapping Features tool to find the number of overlapping habitat and ecosystem polygons to create a biodiversity map.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Approximate Reading Time:<\/strong> 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The Count Overlapping Features<\/a><\/strong> tool, introduced in ArcGIS Pro 2.5, makes determining the number, area, and location of overlapping polygons simple! This blog uses this tool with species habitat range data to create a biodiversity map.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Get<\/strong> started<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Biodiversity refers to the different types of life in an area, including the variety of plant and animal species. To map biodiversity, we need to distinguish between the areas with a low to a high number of overlapping habitats or ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Like with most projects, we need to start with some data. The database pictured below contains multiple polygon feature classes for various species’ habitat ranges and ecosystems. Our task is to use this data to create a biodiversity map.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":1693572,"id":1693572,"title":"variablesingeodatabase","filename":"variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","filesize":27172,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-create-biodiversity-map-using-count-overlapping-features\/variablesingeodatabase","alt":"","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"Dataset of 13 habitat and ecosystem polygon feature classes","name":"variablesingeodatabase","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":1693562,"date":"2022-08-23 20:19:07","modified":"2022-08-23 20:19:24","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":433,"height":341,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","medium-width":331,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","medium_large-width":433,"medium_large-height":341,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","large-width":433,"large-height":341,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","1536x1536-width":433,"1536x1536-height":341,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","2048x2048-width":433,"2048x2048-height":341,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","card_image-width":433,"card_image-height":341,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/variablesingeodatabase-e1661289478962.png","wide_image-width":433,"wide_image-height":341}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Brainstorm Solutions<\/strong><\/h1>\n

A simple approach to observe overlap would be to add all the datasets to a map, set each\u00a0layer symbology to partially transparent, and observe the change in opacity from light to dark. However, it may become difficult to distinguish between slight changes in opacity. Moreover, setting transparency will not produce an output feature class that tells us how many features overlap. What is the best way to identify and quantify overlapping feature layers?<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":1693612,"id":1693612,"title":"TRANSPARANCY","filename":"TRANSPARANCY.png","filesize":625379,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-create-biodiversity-map-using-count-overlapping-features\/transparancy","alt":"","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"Polygon layers symbolized using transparency.","name":"transparancy","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":1693562,"date":"2022-08-23 20:23:00","modified":"2022-08-23 20:23:20","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1638,"height":952,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","medium-width":449,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":446,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","large-width":1638,"large-height":952,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY-1536x893.png","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":893,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","2048x2048-width":1638,"2048x2048-height":952,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY-800x465.png","card_image-width":800,"card_image-height":465,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/TRANSPARANCY.png","wide_image-width":1638,"wide_image-height":952}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Count Overlapping Features<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Count Overlapping Features<\/strong><\/a> geoprocessing tool quantifies the number of overlapping input features to an output feature class. This tool is helpful when working with one or many layers with overlapping polygon features.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":1693822,"id":1693822,"title":"documentationillustration","filename":"documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","filesize":30126,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/analytics\/arcgis-pro-create-biodiversity-map-using-count-overlapping-features\/documentationillustration-2","alt":"Documentation Illustration","author":"314022","description":"","caption":"Illustration of the Count Overlapping Features tool's input and output.","name":"documentationillustration-2","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":1693562,"date":"2022-08-23 21:16:41","modified":"2022-08-23 21:17:07","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":432,"height":238,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","medium-width":432,"medium-height":238,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","medium_large-width":432,"medium_large-height":238,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","large-width":432,"large-height":238,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","1536x1536-width":432,"1536x1536-height":238,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","2048x2048-width":432,"2048x2048-height":238,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","card_image-width":432,"card_image-height":238,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2022\/08\/documentationillustration-1-e1661289456872.png","wide_image-width":432,"wide_image-height":238}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Prepare the species data<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The data for this project comes from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission<\/a> and includes 13 ecosystem and habitat polygon feature classes.<\/p>\n

Some habitat features extend beyond Florida’s state land and water boundaries. First, use the Pairwise Clip<\/a> tool to cut the features to only include the areas in the Florida state waters and land boundary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next, after looking at the data, there are a few potential problems:<\/p>\n