HydroQGIS

A Hydrology Data (HydroData) plugin

For QuantumGIS (QGIS)
Nels Frazier
University of Wyoming

Example Workflow

Flood Frequency Analysis using HEC-FQ:

Find USGS Stations in Area of Interest

Download Peak Flow data from USGS for each

station

Convert each series to HEC-FQ input format

Run HEC-FQ (Requires DOS emulator!) for each

station

Parse output to use for analysis

Analyze results

Problem:

Motivation

Hydrology produces data across space and time

Research hampered by complicated workflows

Goal:

Reduce steps in data life cycle via automation

Develop tools for finding, displaying, and

processing hydrological data

Cross-Platform, easy to use, simplified workflow

HydroQGIS Workflow

Flood Frequency Analysis using HydroQGIS:

Identify a watershed (Optional)

Find USGS Stations

Run Flood Frequency Analysis

Analyze results

HydroQGIS Watershed Delineation

With one click:

Get coordinates from mouse click

Call the EPA Waters web service

Add polygon to map layer

Station Search

With one click:

Get coordinates from mouse click

Call the USGS Water Services web service

Add NWIS stations, located within X miles of

clicked point, to the map

Flood Frequency Analysis

Select one or more features, or an entire layer,

containing USGS site codes
With one click:

Download Peak Flow Data from USGS

Perform flood frequency analysis

Plot frequency curve

Save output

Frequency Curves

Numerical Outputs

Numerical outputs saved in CSV format for easy

re-use

Frequency Curve

Confidence Intervals

Plotting Positions

Implementation Details

QGIS

Full Python API

Plugin Framework

Cross-platform, open source

Qt-Designer for building GUI's

Q-Threads

Tools are threaded for performance

All network related tasks are threaded

Keeps the QGIS application responsive and available to multi-task

Modularity

Services and Tools implemented independently

New tools can easily be added to the framework
Python Foo could allow for dynamic loading of new tools

This would allow for simple drop-in of code directory to add features

Rapid Development/Prototyping

Full use of Python Modules/Packages

No compilation required

Easily added to any QGIS installation

Benefits

Cross Platform, Open Source Solution

Consistent, integrated environment

Free GIS tools

Community Support

Development focuses on research and data

Future Development

Integration with Data Providers

Precipitation interpolation tools

User Selected Instantaneous Values Data Download and Plotting

Integration with Climata

Python package for accessing hydrologically relevant data

from multiple public data sources

Acknowledgements
This work was started in the Fall 2014 Hydroinformatics course as a
class project at the University of Wyoming. The following people have
contributed code and/or proofs of concept for utilities that are or will be
integrated into HydroQGIS:
Jason Regina

NWIS Station Search

Yanyan Cheng

Rainfall Interpolation using IDW method

Leticia Pureza

USGS Instantaneous Values Data Download

Guy Litt

Interfacing with Climata

References

Climata

EPA WATERS

http://www.epa.gov/waters/

NWIS

http://github.com/heigeo/climata

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/

QGIS

http://www.qgis.org/