Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

HYDROLOGICAL ANALYSIS USING QGIS

1. Open QGIS
 Click Start -> All Programs -> QGIS Lyon -> QGIS Desktop.
 QGIS Window opens.

2. Import DEM
 Click Layer-> Add Layer -> Add Raster Layer. A dialog Box appears. Select the path in
which the data is located and select the data and click open.
 The DEM data is loaded in the QGIS “layers Panel”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

3. Create a Vector File for the Boundary

 Click Layer -> Create Layer -> New Shapefile Layer. A dialog box appears.
 In the dialogbox, Select the Type as “Polygon” and select File encoding to the
corresponding Projection system required. In the New attribute add the name and
type of the input for the column, Click “Add to attributes list” and click “ok”.
 A “Save layer as” dialog box appears, Enter the file name and click “ok”.
 The vector layer created appears in the “layers Panel”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

4. Input Feature to Vector Shape File:

 Select the Vector file, Right click and select Toggle Editing or Click icon.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

 Click “Add Feature” Icon and Digitize the required area of DEM.
 Once the required area is digitized, Right click to stop digitizing. After Right clicking a
dialog Box appears, Provide the details and click “ok”

 The Area is selected, Click on Save icon and Right click and select Toggle Editing or

Click icon

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

5. Create New Mapset in GRASS Plugin.

 Click Plugins -> GRASS -> New Mapset. New Mapset dialog box appears.
 Select the Database Directory where the file needed to be stored and click next.
 Enter the Location name for the project in “Create new location” and click next.
 Select the Required coordinate system for the project and click next.
 In the Default GRASS Region, Set the current QGIS region or set the extent to the
region that is required and click next.
 In the New Mapset, Enter the Name of the Mapset for the project, click next and
select New Mapset , “Click Finish”.
 A message appears that “New mapset successfully created and set as current working
mapset.” Click ok.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

6. Importing Raster into GRASS.

 Click Plugins-> GRASS -> Open GRASS Tools. The GRASS tool box appears.
 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules” , Expand “File
Management”, Expand “ Import into GRASS”, Expand “ Import raster into GRASS”,
Expand “ Import raster into GRASS from QGIS view”, and select “r.in.gdal.qgis”
 A Module tab opens, In that select the Loaded Layer as the DEM that is to be provided
as input and enter the output file name in “ Name for output raster map” and click
“run”.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab, and then click “View
Output”. The DEM will appear in the QGIS “Layers Panel”. Click “Close”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

7. Importing Vector into GRASS:

 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules” , Expand “File
Management”, Expand “ Import into GRASS”, Expand “ Import vector into GRASS”,
and select “v.in.ogr.qgis”. (If the file is already loaded in QGIS)
 A Module tab opens, In that select the Loaded Layer as the shape file that is to be
provided as input and enter the output file name in “ Name for output vector layer”
and click “run”.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab, and then click “View
Output”. The vector layer will appear in the QGIS “Layers Panel”. Click “Close”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

8. Clip Raster to Required Area:

 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules”, Expand “ File
Management”, Expand “Map type conversion”, Expand “Convert a vector to raster
within GRASS”, select “v.to.rast.constant”
 A module tab opens in that select the boundary file as name of the input vector map
and set raster value as constant, enter the output name and click run.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab, and then click “View
Output”. The raster layer will appear in the QGIS “Layers Panel”. Click “Close”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules”, Expand “ Raster”,
Expand “Spatial analysis”, Expand “Mask”, select “r.mask”.
 A module tab opens in that select the boundary raster map as input raster map for
“raster map to use as mask” and category values to use for Mask as the provided
constant raster value, enter the output name and click run.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab. The raster layer
loaded in the QGIS “Layers Panel” will be clipped based on the mask and Click
“Close”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

9. To Find Catchment, Flow Direction, Flow Accumulation:

 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules”, Expand “ Raster”,
Expand “Spatial models”, Expand “Hydrologic modelling”, select “r.watershed”.
 A module tab opens in that select the clipped DEM raster map as input raster map
for “Input map: elevation on which entire analysis is based” and enter the minimum
size for each basin value as per the requirement, enter the output name for “Output
map: number of cells that drains through each cell” as Flow_Accumulation, “Output
map: drainage direction”as flow_direction , “Output map: Stream segments” as
Stream_segments and “Output map: unique value for each water she basin” as
Watershed and click run.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab, and then click “View
Output”. The raster layer will appear in the QGIS “Layers Panel”. Click “Close”.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

Catchment Area

Flow Accumulation

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

Flow Direction

Stream Segmentation

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

10. To Vectorize Catchment Area:

 In the GRASS toolbox under Modules, Expand “GRASS Modules”, Expand “ File
Management”, Expand “Map type conversion”, Expand “Convert a raster to vector
within GRASS”, select “r.to.vect.area”
 A module tab opens in that select the watershed obtained as name of the input rastor
map and enter the output name and click run.
 A message “Successfully finished” will appear in the output tab, and then click “View
Output”. The vector layer will appear in the QGIS “Layers Panel”. Click “Close”.
 The process can also be repeated for the extraction of streams from Stream
Segmentation.

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 Training Material – Hydrological Analysis

Catchment Area (Vectorized)

Stream Segmentation (Vectorized)

(Note: For Further Analysis we require various layers and it will be discussed in the next phase)

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