 Strength of a flow

The strength of a flow, also called its flow value, is net outflow from $s$, equivalently net inflow to $t$:The notation $|f|$ denotes this signed value, rather than an absolute value.^[ref]

The equality follows by summing the divergence of a flow over all vertices: the internal vertices contribute zero by flow conservation, while every edge cancels between its two endpoints. Hence $\mathrm{div}f(s)=-\mathrm{div}f(t)$. For the running flow, $|f|=3+2=2+3=5$.

Net outflow matters even when the source has incoming edges. As a separate example, give $s\to a$, $a\to s$ and $s\to t$ flow network edge capacities $2,2,3$ and flow amounts $2,2,3$. At $a$, flow conservation reads $2=2$. The source sends $5$ units along outgoing edges but receives $2$ back, so the flow value is $5-2=3$, exactly the amount arriving at $t$. The two-edge network circulation through $a$ raises total edge usage without increasing net delivery.