Emily McGinty

ENVS421 lab 3
2/18/19

Hydrology Methods Manual and Model

Hydrology Toolset

The purpose of the hydrology toolset is to model the flow

of water across a surface. The tools all base stream behavior off
of a DEM, either directly or indirectly. We can model where
water on a surface will go, how it will get there, and how
changes in the landscape will affect this flow.

Preprocessing

I began this process with three datasets: a digital

elevation model (DEM) of Washington state and feature classes
of subwatersheds and streams of the Puget Sound region. My
purpose being to analyze stream behavior based on elevation in
a particular watershed, I used the subwatersheds feature class
to clip the DEM and the streams to my area of interest, in this
case the south fork Nooksack River watershed. I then chose a
local projection system to convert my files into before continuing
with the analysis.

Figure 1. The hydrology

toolset in the ArcGIS Pro
geoprocessing pane.
Figure 2. My digital elevation model of the south fork Nooksack River watershed, post
prepocessing.

Fill

A sink is a cell which has no cells adjacent to it that are lower in elevation. This is a
problem for hydrology modeling because if all the cells surrounding a cell are higher in
elevation, the model cannot determine which direction the water will flow once this sink fills up.
Therefore, I used the fill tool to bring the elevation of every sink up to the elevation of its lowest
neighbor before running any other hydrology tool. A z limit can be set to exclude sinks of a
certain depth from being filled, but I did not set one for this case. The input and output are both
DEMs.
The model begins with this tool.

Flow direction

The flow direction tool starts with a DEM and calculates the direction that water will
move from each cell. There are three methods this tool can use; I chose D8. The D8 method
models flow from each cell to its lowest neighboring cell. The output flow direction raster shows
flow in one of eight directions for each cell. The output drop raster shows the steepness of the
flow from cell to cell. I used my filled DEM and produced both outputs.

Figure 3. The resulting output flow direction raster from the flow direction tool and a DEM of the
south fork Nooksack River. Depicts the direction in which water will flow from each cell based on
elevation.

Flow accumulation

The flow accumulation tool calculates, for each cell, the number of cells that flow into it,
from the flow direction raster. I chose output data type “integer”. I did not use an input weight
raster and accepted the default D8 flow direction type.
Figure 4. The resulting output flow accumulation raster from the flow accumulation tool and the
flow direction raster. Depicts the number of 100 m2 cells that drain into each cell, converted to
mi2.

Raster calculator

Raster calculator is not a hydrology tool. However, I used it to define streams from the
flow accumulation output. In order to quantify this delineation, I changed the symbology type of
my flow accumulation raster to classify using two classes and overlaid my streams feature
class. In this scenario, the upper class of values represented streams and the lower class
represented not streams. By changing the upper value of the lower class and comparing to the
streams feature class, I was able to determine the value which was the break between streams
and not streams in the flow accumulation raster. In raster calculator I created the expression
“SetNull(“%SFNR_acc%” < 700, 1”, where SFNR_acc was the name of my flow accumulation
raster and 700 was the threshold value I chose to designate streams from non stream land. The
output resulted in a raster with a single value of 1 equating to every cell in the flow accumulation
raster whose value had been greater than or equal to 700. All values that had been less than
700 were set to null in the output streams raster. From here, I converted my streams raster to a
streams line feature class.
 Note: if you would like to use a different threshold value to delineate your streams, you
must do so through the editing pane of the model.

Figure 5. The flow accumulation raster symbolized with two classes with a break point of 700
cells to delineate stream cells versus non stream cells, as described above.

Stream link

A stream link, or segment, refers to an uninterrupted stretch of stream between two

junctions with other streams. Using the streams and flow direction rasters as inputs, I ran the
stream link tool, resulting in an output with a unique identifier for each stream segment.
Figure 6. The resulting output stream link raster from the stream link tool and the flow direction
raster. Depicts each uninterrupted stream segment in a different color.

Stream order

The stream order is a method of hierarchical organization of a stream network. It begins

with the first order, which is the headwater streams. Every time two streams of equal order
meet, the resulting single stream is bumped up to the next order. For example, when two first
order streams meet, the resulting stream is of second order. When streams of different orders
meet, the resulting stream retains the higher order. For example, if a first order stream and a
third order stream meet, the resulting stream is of the third order. From the stream and flow
direction rasters, with the Strahler method, I calculated stream order.
Figure 7. The resulting output stream order raster from the stream order tool and the flow
direction raster. Depicts the ranking of streams from headwater streams to large rivers, as
described above.

Flow length

I used the flow length tool to calculate the distance of the longest continuous flow path to
the outlet of the watershed from each cell with the flow direction raster using the downstream
option. The output is a continuous raster visualizing how far water has to travel to reach the
outlet of the watershed.
Figure 8. The resulting output flow length raster from the flow length tool and the flow direction
raster. Depicts the number of cells water will travel through to reach the final drainage point of
the south fork Nooksack River watershed, from each particular cell.

Basin

The basin tool uses the flow direction raster to calculate drainage basins, or the entire
land area that flows to a single outlet. The output raster contained the entire south fork
Nooksack River watershed. I converted the raster to a polygon feature class. Some of the land
area in this feature class did not drain to the south fork Nooksack River, so I deleted these small
polygons from the dataset. This was easy to do by viewing the attribute table. In the attribute
table, one polygon had a much larger area than the rest. This polygon was the south fork
Nooksack River basin, so all other polygons were area that did not drain to the south fork
Nooksack River. I used this edited basin feature class to clip out streams that were not
incorporated in the south fork Nooksack River system from the streams feature class from the
Raster Calculator step.
Use of the model ends here. The final steps were run by hand.

Snap Pour Point

 The purpose of the snap pour point tool is to determine the cell of highest accumulated
flow in a designated area. For my purpose, I used it to determine the outlet of each
subwatershed within the south fork Nooksack River watershed. The snap pour point tool
requires input pour point data. I created a new point feature class. With my stream order raster
visible and the symbology set so only streams order four and higher were displayed, I created a
point immediately downstream of the confluence of any two streams. With this completed, I
used this feature class and my flow accumulation raster as the inputs to the snap pour point tool
with a snap distance of 30 meters.

Watershed

The watershed tool determines the area of cells that contribute to a particular cell. With
the pour point raster and the flow direction raster as inputs, I used the watershed tool to
delineate the subwatersheds within the area of interest. Then, with flow direction and stream link
rasters as inputs, I used the watershed tool again to delineate catchments within the basin.

Figure 9. The resulting output watershed raster from the watershed tool, the pour point raster,
and the flow direction raster. Depicts the subwatersheds of the south fork Nooksack River
watershed. Additionally, for context, the contributing streams and the pour points of each
subwatershed are displayed.

Figure 10. The resulting output watershed raster from the watershed tool, the stream link raster,
and the flow direction raster. Depicts the catchments of the south fork Nooksack River
watershed that contribute to each individual stream. Additionally, for context, the contributing
streams are displayed.

Map Credits
Data sources: USGS, WWU
Projection: NAD 1983 StatePlane Washington North FIPS 4601