Remove non-intersecting rows from two polygon shapefiles

Question

I am working on Arcmap 10.1.

I have two polygon shapefiles: S1 and S2
S1 has 4 polygons (rows): P1, P2, P3, P4;
S2 has 3 polygons (rows): Q1, Q2, Q3
From S2, I have to remove those polygons which do not have any intersection with any Pi, i = {1...4}.

I am new to Arcmap, I couldn't figure this out from the existing questions.

Answer 1

On the "Selection" menu you can "Select by location". Select from S2 (target layer) only polygons which intersect (spatial method) S1 (source layer). Once selected, right click on layer "Data/Export data": you will have a new layer without polygons which do not intersect S1.

Answer 2

First, start an editing session using the Editor toolbar > Start Editing.

The simplest way to do this would be Select By Location, under the Selection menu:

1. Use Select Features From as the selection method (this is the default).
2. Under Target Layers, check the box for layer S2.
3. Under Source Layer, select S1.
4. Under Spatial Selection Method, select "Intersect the source layer feature".

That will select features in S2 that do intersect S1, so you'll need to do one more step to select the features that do not intersect S1:

5. Right-click layer S2 in the Table of Contents, click Selection > Switch Selection.

Then delete the selected features from S2 and save your edits.