The Enrich Layer tool gives you demographic and landscape data for the people, places, and businesses associated with your point, line, or area data locations.
It uses the Esri GeoEnrichment service.
Examples
Library staff want to ensure program offerings at each library branch effectively serve local communities. By using the Enrich Layer tool to gather information about the people living in neighborhoods surrounding each library, they get a clear picture of who the potential branch patrons are. This allows them to more effectively design their program offerings to match local community needs.
A development company is looking for a great location to build a new retirement community. They use the Enrich Layer tool to obtain demographic data for the neighborhoods surrounding their existing, most successful communities. They can then rank candidate development sites based on similarity to those demographic characteristics.
A hydrologist needs to prioritize stream restoration projects within an urban watershed. She can combine the water quality and aquatic species data she has gathered, with demographic and landscape data obtained using the Enrich Layer tool. This allows her to create an index of stream health.
An analyst has crime counts for hexagon grid cells overlaying her city. In order to create a crime rate, she uses the Enrich Layer tool to obtain the number of people living within each hexagon.
Usage notes
The input data to be enriched can be any point, line, or area features. The Enrich Layer tool uses data apportionment to provide accurate data estimates, even for your own custom geometry.
Tip:
Depending on the configuration of your organization, you will have access to either Esri Living Atlas Analysis Layers, such as ZIP Codes, Census blocks, and hexbins, or Custom Analysis Layers. Click the drop-down for the Choose layer to enrich with new data parameter to select an analysis layer to enrich.
The Data Browser dialog box displays all the variables available with the Enrich Layer tool and can be opened by clicking the Select Variables button. Data availability depends on the location of your features.
Tip:
You can create a favorites list for the variables you use most often. Clicking the star next to a variable name adds it to the favorites list. Access your favorites by clicking Show Favorite Variables on the menu page of the Data Browser dialog box.
Ultimately, the Enrich Layer tool retrieves data for area features. If your input is points or lines, specify the areas to associate with each feature. For point features, for example, you could specify a Drive Time of 15 Minutes or a Drive Distance of 5 Miles. This creates an area around each point constructed using the underlying road network. The data that is retrieved is based on these travel-time or travel-distance area features. You can create straight-line buffers around either line or point features using the Line Distance option for the Define areas to enrich parameter. Again, the data retrieved is for the buffer areas.
Time measurement options include Seconds, Minutes, and Hours. Distance measurement options include Miles, Yards, Feet, Kilometers, and Meters.
The Return result as bounding areas box is unchecked by default. When the box is unchecked, the results will be returned as points or lines, depending on the input features. When the box is checked, the results will be returned as areas based on the locations of your inputs and your area definition.
If Use current map extent is checked, only the features in the input layer visible within the current map extent will be enriched. If unchecked, all features in the input layer will be enriched, even if they are outside the current map extent.
Limitations
- Data availability is dependent on the location of the input features.
- You must have GeoEnrichment privileges to use the Enrich Layer tool.
- You must have network analysis privileges to use travel modes.
- Straight-line distances are limited to 1,000 miles (1609 kilometers).
- Travel durations cannot exceed 5 hours (300 minutes).
- Travel distances are limited to 300 miles (428.8 kilometers).
- Travel modes are not based on traffic conditions. If you require feature areas based on traffic conditions, first use the Create Drive-Time Areas tool to create the feature areas; then enrich them using the Enrich Layer tool.
How Enrich Layer works
The high quality data available when you use the Enrich Layer tool comes from a variety of sources and is regularly updated. Different data allocation methods are used to retrieve data depending on available geography levels for the locations of the features you are enriching. In the United States and Canada, block group data is allocated to custom areas using weights determined by population distribution.