GIS Hydro '99 - Watershed Characterization Module

GIS Hydro '99 - Watershed Characterization

Watershed Characterization Module

Center for Research in Water Resources, The University of Texas at Austin

Introduction

Watershed characterization describes a set of methods for doing calculations on a digital elevation model (DEM) of the land surface to derive drainage patterns, delineate streams and watersheds, and determine their interconnectivity. This module is devoted to the CRWR-Prepro, the preprocessor developed at the University of Texas. Included in this module are the ArcView projects and input tables required to run the preprocessor. Also included are conference papers and presentations, tutorial exercises and instruction movies on how to use the preprocessor.

CRWR-PrePro is an ArcView preprocessor that extracts information from digital spatial data and sets it in a form that can be used by other application programs. It is our intention to develop connections to different hydrologic, hydraulic and environmental engineering software packages, although at present only the Hydrologic Modeling System (HMS) developed by the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC) has been included.

CRWR-PrePro has been developed by Dr. David Maidment's GIS Research Group at the Center for Research in Water Resources (CRWR) of the University of Texas at Austin. Development of the CRWR-PrePro prototype has been a team effort led by Dr. Francisco Olivera. The contribution of graduate students of the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (EWRE) program of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Texas at Austin is greatly appreciated.

HMS Module

The HMS Module of CRWR-PrePro has been funded in part by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC).

Working Files

ArcView Projects. These are the two most recent versions of the preprocessor. Only one project is necessary.

prepro03a.apr
prepro04.apr (May 18, 1999)

Transfer Tables. Transfer tables are necessary only if the user wants to transfer the hydrologic attributes to HMS. All seven tables should be used to transfer attributes.

Sample Parameter Tables (template). Table wshpar.txt is necessary depending on the method selected for calculating abstractions and watershed lag-time. Table streamp.txt is always necessary.

streamp.txt
wshpar.txt

Sample Look-up Tables (template). Table rcn.txt is necessary for calculation of runoff curve numbers.

rcn.txt

Papers

HEC-PrePro v. 2.0: An ArcView Pre-Processor for HEC's Hydrologic Modeling System by Francisco Olivera, David Maidment and Seann Reed. Presented at the 1998 ESRI User's Conference. San Diego, California, July 1998.

Presentations

Calculation of Hydrologic Parameters Using CRWR_PrePro by Francisco Olivera. Presented at the CE394-K3 GIS in Water Resources class at the University of Texas at Austin. Austin, Texas, October 1998. [PowerPoint Presentation: 2.4 Mb]
CRWR-Prepro by Francisco Olivera. Presented at the 1998 ESRI User's Conference. San Diego, California, July 1998. [PowerPoint Presentation: 4.5 Mb]
Terrain Analysis of the Iberian Peninsula Using HEC-PrePro v. 2.0 by Francisco Olivera. Austin, Texas, May 1998.
CRWR-PrePro Workshop by Francisco Olivera. Presented at the CRWR-PrePro Workshop organized by the Center for Research in Water Resources (CRWR). Austin, Texas, May 1998.
From GIS to HMS by Francisco Olivera, Aubrey Dugger, David Maidment and Edward Holley. Presented at the GIS and Hydrology Workshop organized by the CRWR for the HEC. Austin, Texas, September 1997.

Tutorials

CRWR-PrePro Goes to Hollywood is a set of eight tutorial movies developed with Lotus ScreenCam for Windows 95 by Francisco Olivera. The 8 movies along with the Lotus ScreenCam Player for Windows 95 (used for viewing the movies) are contained in a single .zip file. Click here to extract the file, movies.zip, and unzip the movies using the pkzip utility also contained on this CD-ROM. The eight movies present, in sequence, the entire process of preparing a HMS Basin File. The whole package of movie and player files take up approximately 60 Mb!!!

Getting started (3 min. 53 sec. - 4.9 Mb)
Terrain Analysis (3 min. 28 sec. - 12.8 Mb)
Stream and watershed delineation (10 min. 46 sec. - 22.7 Mb)
Stream and watershed vectorization (4 min. 35 sec. - 5.4 Mb)
Calculation of hydrologic parameters (4 min. 6 sec. - 2.9 Mb)
Clipping out a sub-model (2 min. 37 sec. - 5.0 Mb)
Generating the HMS schematic (5 min. 16 sec. - 5.5 Mb)
Opening the basin file in HMS (3 min. 30 sec. - 1.7 Mb)

Exercises

Delineating the Watershed and Stream Network of the Guadalupe Basin by David Maidment. Developed for the CE394-K3 GIS in Water Resources class at the University of Texas. Fall 1998.
Developing a Hydrologic Model of the Guadalupe Basin by Francisco Olivera and David Maidment. Developed for the CE394-K3 GIS in Water Resources class at the University of Texas. Fall 1998.

River Network Module

We have this year begun a new initiative to formalize the development of network models for rivers and watersheds. This has resulted in a method for developing single line networks for the United States using the River Reach File 3 as a starting point, and substituting for all the water bodies and double line rivers, a single line down through the center of these features developed by the US Geological Survey as part of the National Hydrography Dataset. The Trinity River basin is our case study for this work. The term paper by Jóna Finndís Jónsdóttir explains how this was done for the Trinity basin. The attached river River Network Module prepared by Kim Davis with contributions by Richard Gu shows what we have achieved so far. We intend to expand this effort into a formal GeoObject Model for Rivers and Watersheds under Arc/Info Version 8.0 during the coming year.

These materials may be used for study, research, and education, but please credit the authors and the Center for Research in Water Resources, The University of Texas at Austin. All commercial rights reserved. Copyright 1999 Center for Research in Water Resources.

Francisco Olivera, Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin
Center for Research in Water Resources (CRWR)
Pickle Research Campus # 119 (R8000)
Austin, Texas 78712-4497
Telephone: (512) 471-0570
FAX: (512) 471-0072
e-mail: folivera@mail.utexas.edu