Taking selected value from one table and populating field in feature class using ModelBuilder?

Question

I'm still very new to ModelBuilder and I'm trying to work my way through it. I am trying to take a value from a table and basically paste it into a field of a feature class using ModelBuilder. I have a polygon layer that has building footprints and another polygon layer that is squares for flooding depth. These two layers can not be joined.

I currently have the model set up to select 1 building at a time and then use that building to select by location via intersect on the flood layer. This then selects anywhere between 1 and 6 flood squares. I then have to take the average of the flood depth from those squares and add it to an existing field in the building layer. This is the part I get stuck on. I can run a summary statistics to get the average of the selected flood square which creates another table.

How would I get that value into a field in the building footprint layer?

If the calculate field could accept multiple inputs this would be simple but I am having a hard time taking the data from one table and filling a field in a different shapefile.

Answer 1

If I am not misinterpreting your question, this is a simple three-step process:

• Union your building footprints with the flood depth squares;
• Select from unioned polygons where the Building OID has a value;
• Then use Dissolve tool by selecting your Building OIDs as dissolve field and depth field as summary field with AVERAGE/MEAN operator.

This will create a new feature class, though, which will have just building OIDs and average depth information. You can either join this to your original building feature class to transfer depth info (alternatively use Join Field tool) or pick the fields that you want to keep as Summary Field with FIRST operator (which will add suffix to the field names though).

As a last note, I would calculate area weighted depth as average since just using intersected values might skew the result (for example, maybe only 1% of a depth cell may be covered by a building but it will be counted as the same as fully covered depth cell(s)).