ArcGIS Tutorial: How a Fill works

Sinks (peaks) are common errors resulting from the resolution of the data or rounding the elevation to the nearest integer value.

Sinks should be populated to ensure that basins and rivers are properly divided. If sinks are not populated, the resulting drainage network may render discontinuities.

The Fill tool locates and fills sinks using functions equivalent to focus flow, flow direction, sink, watershed, and area fill. The execution of the tool is iterated until all sinks within the specified Z-limit are populated. While populating sinks, additional sinks may be created at the boundary of the filled area, which will be removed in the next iteration.

　　

The tool can also be used to remove a peak, which is a pseudo-cell whose elevation is higher than the expected elevation (based on the trend of the surrounding surface).

　　

For non-SDTS USGS 30-meter resolution Dem,tarboton (1991), others found that 0.9% to 4.7% of the cells in the DEM were sinks. The average correction range for these sinks is 2.6 to 4.8 meters. This means that for a 1,000x1,000 cell grid (1 million cells), there may be 9,000 to 47,000 sinks to populate. The percentage of sinks in other DEM data sources is either high or low depending on how the surface is treated.

　　Example

To populate sinks of all depths less than 100 meters, you can set the Fill tool as follows:

· Input surface Raster: elevation

Output surface Raster: fill_ras1

Z Limit: 100

Copyright NOTICE: This article for Bo Master original article, without Bo Master permission not reproduced.

ArcGIS Tutorial: How a Fill works