Arc Hydro
Free
Esri's free hydrology framework for ArcGIS Pro — terrain preprocessing and the data model behind many agency workflows.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveWatershed DelineationDEM Processing
12 tools · Topic
DEM Processing & Conditioning Tools
Raw elevation models need conditioning before hydrology can run on them: void filling, depression breaching, stream burning, resampling. Indexed here are the terrain engines and libraries that do this at scale, from WhiteboxTools to GDAL-based pipelines.
GRASS GIS
Open Source
Four decades of geospatial engineering — r.watershed and the most battle-tested hydrology modules in GIS.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveWatershed DelineationDEM Processing
HydroMT
Open Source
Deltares' Python framework that builds ready-to-run hydrological models from global and local datasets.
Hydrology & Catchment AnalysisActivePython HydrologyDEM Processing
HydroSHEDS
Free
The global hydrography reference — basins, river networks, lakes and hydro-environmental attributes, free.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveWatershed DelineationTerrain Analysis
NOAA VDatum
Gov-Public
Transform elevations between vertical datums — the essential fix-up for US coastal flood and drainage models.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveCoastal ModellingDEM Processing
QGIS
Open SourceVerified
The free, open-source GIS that has become the default spatial platform for water engineers worldwide.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveQGIS HydrologyTerrain Analysis
RichDEM
Open Source
High-performance DEM conditioning — Priority-Flood depression filling at scale, C++ with Python bindings.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISDormantDEM ProcessingTerrain Analysis
SAGA GIS
Open Source
The geomorphometry powerhouse — hundreds of terrain and hydrology modules behind a free desktop GIS.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveTerrain AnalysisDEM Processing
TauDEM
Open Source
Utah State's parallel terrain-analysis suite — D-infinity flow modelling and objective stream-network extraction.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableDEM ProcessingWatershed Delineation
WhiteboxTools
Open SourceVerified
500+ fast geospatial analysis tools with the best DEM hydrology toolkit in open source.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveDEM ProcessingTerrain Analysis
delineator
Open Source
Fast global watershed delineation in Python — the MERIT-Hydro engine behind the Global Watersheds web app.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableWatershed DelineationPython Hydrology
pysheds
Open Source
Watershed delineation in pure Python — DEM conditioning to catchment boundary in a dozen lines.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableWatershed DelineationDEM Processing