QGIS
Open SourceVerified
The free, open-source GIS that has become the default spatial platform for water engineers worldwide.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveQGIS HydrologyTerrain Analysis
Google Earth Engine
ActivePlanetary-scale geospatial analysis in the cloud — the data catalogue and compute behind modern water remote sensing.
by Google
- Pricing
- Freemium
- License
- Proprietary (free for noncommercial use)
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- JavaScript, Python
- Platform
- Web
About Google Earth Engine
Earth Engine pairs a multi-petabyte catalogue of satellite and environmental data — Landsat, Sentinel, MODIS, precipitation, terrain, land cover, the JRC Global Surface Water record — with cloud compute that runs your JavaScript or Python analysis next to the data. Water applications lead its success stories: global surface-water change, flood mapping, irrigation monitoring, snow and drought tracking.
It is free for noncommercial and research use, with commercial licensing through Google Cloud. The skill transfers everywhere in modern hydrology; start with the JavaScript Code Editor or geemap in Python.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
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Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveDEM ProcessingTerrain Analysis
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Crayfish
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Geospatial & Hydro-GISStableQGIS HydrologyFlood Mapping
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
Click anywhere on earth, get the upstream watershed in seconds — free delineation in the browser.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveWatershed Delineation