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Sink (Spatial Analyst Tools)

Summary

Creates a raster identifying all sinks or areas of internal drainage.

Learn more about how Sink works

Usage

  • A sink is a cell or set of spatially connected cells whose flow direction cannot be assigned one of the eight valid values in a flow direction raster. This can occur when all neighboring cells are higher than the processing cell or when two cells flow into each other, creating a two-cell loop.

  • The Sink tool only supports a D8 input flow direction raster. D8 flow directions can be created using the Flow Direction tool, run with default flow direction type D8.

  • The output of the Sink tool is an integer raster with each sink being assigned a unique value. Sinks are numbered between one and the number of sinks.

  • This tool supports parallel processing. If your computer has multiple processors or processors with multiple cores, better performance may be achieved, particularly on larger datasets. The Parallel processing with Spatial Analyst help topic includes details about this capability and how to configure it.

    When using parallel processing, temporary data will be written to manage the data chunks being processed. The default temp folder location will be on your local C: drive. You can control the location of this folder by setting up a system environment variable named TempFolders and specifying the path to a folder to use (for example, E:\RasterCache). If you have administrator privileges on your machine, you can also use a registry key (for example, [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ESRI\ArcGISPro\Raster]).

    By default, this tool will use 50 percent of the available cores. If the input data is smaller than 5,000-by-5,000 cells in size, fewer cores may be used. You can control the number of cores the tool uses with the Parallel processing factor environment.

  • When the output raster format is .crf, this tool supports the Pyramid raster storage environment. Pyramids will be created in the output by default. For any other output format, this environment is not supported, and pyramids will not be created.

  • This tool can be GPU accelerated, which means that if a compatible graphics processing unit (GPU) is available on your system, it will be used to enhance the performance of the tool. Use the Target device for analysis parameter (analysis_target_device in Python) to control whether the GPU or CPU will be used to run the tool.

    See GPU processing with Spatial Analyst for details on compatible GPUs, configuring and working with GPU devices, as well as troubleshooting tips.

  • See Analysis environments and Spatial Analyst for additional details on the geoprocessing environments that apply to this tool.

Parameters

Label Explanation Data type

Input D8 flow direction raster

The input raster that shows the direction of flow out of each cell.

The flow direction raster can be created using the Flow Direction tool, run using the default flow direction type D8.

Raster Layer

Target device for analysis

(Optional)

Specifies the device that will be used to perform the calculation.

  • GPU then CPU—If a compatible GPU is found, it will be used to perform the calculation; otherwise, the CPU will be used. This is the default.

  • CPU only—The calculation will only be performed on the CPU.

  • GPU only—The calculation will only be performed on the GPU.

String

Return value

Label Explanation Data type

Output raster

The output raster that shows all the sinks (areas of internal drainage) on the input surface.

This output is of integer type.

Raster

Environments

Auto Commit, Cell Size, Cell Size Projection Method, Compression, Current Workspace, Extent, Geographic Transformations, GPU ID, Mask, Output CONFIG Keyword, Output Coordinate System, Parallel Processing Factor, Processor Type, Pyramid, Scratch Workspace, Snap Raster, Tile Size

Licensing information

  • Basic: Requires Spatial Analyst
  • Standard: Requires Spatial Analyst
  • Advanced: Requires Spatial Analyst