Identify point features that are nearly identical, so one of each pair can be removed

Summary

Instructions provided describe how to identify point pairs that are extremely close, so that one of each pair can be deleted.

This procedure is designed to help when data has errant duplicates that are not identical but lie within a very small distance of each other, for example, 2cm.

Procedure

1. Open ArcToolbox > Analysis > Proximity > Buffer tool.
2. Add the point layer and set a small value for the Linear amount. In the example used throughout this article, the errant point pairs are usually within 2cm, so set the Linear unit to 3cm. Click OK.
3. Start the Analysis > Overlay > Intersect tool and input the buffer feature class created in Step 2, then click OK. This outputs only the intersection of those buffered polygons.
   

   Note:
   As the buffered polygons are very small, for example, 3cm wide, only features from points that are within 6cm of each other are output.

   
   
4. Right-click on the polygon layer created by the Intersect tool and navigate to 'Open Attribute Table'. Right-click on the first record and select 'Zoom To'. Start an edit session and delete one of the two drain points. Repeat for each record in the buffered output.