QGIS
Open SourceVerified
The free, open-source GIS that has become the default spatial platform for water engineers worldwide.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveQGIS HydrologyTerrain Analysis
pysheds
StableWatershed delineation in pure Python — DEM conditioning to catchment boundary in a dozen lines.
- Pricing
- Open Source
- License
- GPL-3.0
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- Python, NumPy
- Platform
- Windows, macOS, Linux
Install
pip install pyshedsAbout pysheds
pysheds implements the core DEM hydrology chain — pit filling, depression resolution, flow direction (D8 and D-infinity), flow accumulation, catchment delineation, and distance-to-outlet — as a NumPy/Numba-accelerated Python library with a deliberately small API. Read a DEM, snap a pour point, extract a catchment: about ten lines.
For embedding delineation inside a larger Python application or batch-processing hundreds of outlets, pysheds is the lightest-weight serious option. It doesn't try to be a full terrain suite (no breaching, no lidar); WhiteboxTools complements it where conditioning gets difficult.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
Alternatives to pysheds
Other geospatial & hydro-gis tools covering similar workflow stages.
WhiteboxTools
Open SourceVerified
500+ fast geospatial analysis tools with the best DEM hydrology toolkit in open source.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveDEM ProcessingTerrain Analysis
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
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
Google Earth Engine
Freemium
Planetary-scale geospatial analysis in the cloud — the data catalogue and compute behind modern water remote sensing.
Geospatial & Hydro-GISActiveGoogle Earth EngineRemote Sensing