Stream Order from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) using ArcGIS

Would you like to know which streams have the highest flow accumulations and derive the order of the streams using the Strahler Method with ArcGIS?
This step-by-step tutorial will teach you exactly how to do that. In this tutorial you will learn how to:
1. Derive a stream network using the spatial analyst tools of ArcGIS
2. Use the Raster Calculator to create a new raster with high flow accumulations
3. Derive the order of the streams
4. Export the stream network raster into a network of polylines
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[@DibyenduBiswasnature]

Pretty cool and easy and straightforward tutorial.

[@simonsadiq]

That's nice! very simple and easy to understand!

[@ZarrarStark5447]

loved it... good my assignment done within 15 min.

[@yangyang6008]

Great video and detailed explanation! Thanks.

[@pavithrabngowda5757]

Thank you so much for your tutorials, I have zero knowledge about ArcGIS software... but this tutorials helps me alot, and i get some confidence of about arcgis.... 🙏

[@muhammadsiddique2551]

Thanx alot for uploading this tutorial. This has helped me alot. Appreciated your effort

[@sabinj]

Very well explained. Thank you.

[@sarahnolan7865]

This was so helpful...thank you!! :)

[@a.r8482]

Thank you for uploading this tutorial bro .

[@trollenz]

Pretty cool tutorial indeed ! Thanks.

[@railfann9978]

Process Described very nicely,Thanks a Lot....😊😊

[@idreesattar]

you made it so simple.
Thank you sir

[@banditsr08]

Thank you very much for the tutorial.

[@Nasarkhan-eq4sj]

Great step wise tutorial

[@j.himanshurao]

Thankyou so much sir for such an amazing video.

[@ilkayberberoglu9321]

Thank you for this tutorial. It is so instructive !

[@geodeltalabs]

You are welcome

[@riazmuhammad7234]

Thanks for the excellent 👌 tutorial presentation ❤

[@tyman1449]

perfect explanation, thank you very much :)

[@catarinarocha4721]

Great help!! Thank you!!

[@sajedaalmuaini7297]

Very well explained thank u 💕

[@zaccheung2175]

Thank you very much, it really helped me a lot in terms of hydrology analysis and mapping

[@geodeltalabs]

Thanks

[@tDt22100]

Thanks!! So good!

[@preetibhatnagar2328]

Helped me a ton! Thank you so much!

[@geodeltalabs]

No problem 👍

[@bplspamo9846]

Thank You so much.. This was Really helpful...

[@FranklinJSilva]

Thanks, more than one year later still very usefull!

[@geodeltalabs]

You're welcome!

[@suryateja6497]

Thank you! this is very helpful with your voice over

[@geodeltalabs]

You are welcome

[@ssss9519]

Nice really help me

[@alinagerber775]

Thanks a lot! This was very helpful

[@geodeltalabs]

Great!

[@yalemsewtefera1720]

Thank you from Ethiopia

[@Sandy_Gunasekara]

So helpful,thank you

[@geodeltalabs]

You are welcome

[@chaitu8847]

Thank u very much for sharing i learned a lot

[@geodeltalabs]

Thanks for watching. Cheers!

[@thangamaninmamit-civil6860]

Thanks lot for a clear explanation. please make a tutorial of hypsometric study of drainage pattern. Thank you

[@kkethusha7666]

Thank You my teacher. VERY Useful right now. Absolutely you save my time. I am happy to say that I'm learning new things every day from your tutorial. May god bless You🙂🙂😊

[@UNIQUENAME2007]

thank you!

[@geodeltalabs]

You're welcome!

[@surajitkar9349]

fantastic one

[@geodeltalabs]

Thanks

[@arghadeep_das]

Thank u .

[@ZarrarStark5447]

keep posting

[@bindratamang9681]

Best video

[@mundirman]

Terima kasih banyak 👍👍 usefull

[@milesgrenn4690]

Expand my vision,thanks

[@geodeltalabs]

You are welcome

[@KingKhan-dq2bh]

Thanks a lot..

[@geodeltalabs]

You are welcome

[@gusevans4104]

Very nice video and clear explanation. I wonder is there a way to derive a stream_order shp with entire and not segmented branches of streams or at least with an iddtional column with btanch id?

[@robela3468]

Welldone

[@geodeltalabs]

Thanks :)

[@kusumpathak3154]

Sir how can we extract stream order at the scale 1:50000... I mean what value we should assign for flow accumulation?

[@aanisnajmiah8361]

hiii, how do you determine the layer of catchment at first place? didnt the last step is to determine the area of catchment?

[@debojyotibhattacherjee3674]

How did u decide the lower value in flow accumulation? Cauz the value will change in case of hilly to marshy areas.

[@kimaaa1061]

Hello how to put/create catchment on the layers tab?

[@watchingislearning2222]

Thank you, can you share the dem and other files for practice

[@a.senthilvelan973]

Nicely explained Sir..I need a clarification that the higher order should be one, but here there are more fourth order streams. How to merge all the fourth order streams into one...

[@RengifoOrtega]

I wonder if you use single or multiple flow algorithm?

[@samikhan-dl2yw]

how to smooth the lines which had been converted, plz guide me in this regard,

[@moncyakkara9192]

why i am getting an error on performing filling of dem. I was using an mosaicked dem raster. Please let me know what is happening

[@bhiriacity8883]

Can you make video to calculate the discharge of delineated watershed using this equation Q=ciA

[@helien4372]

hello, thank you for this very informative video. I'm doing a project on delineation for one of my courses. could you please share the DEM shapefile you used ?

[@geodeltalabs]

Hi, its been a while since we did this tutorial so I may not be able to share the exact DEM with you. However, check out the following tutorial and you will be able to download your own ASTER DEM czcams.com/video/roryIlOEWlI/video.html

[@SachinSharma-mc7gk]

How can we know about no. of streams present in each order?

[@subhamroy6353]

Can you please prepare stream frequency (per.sq.km grid) video..asap..it would be very helpful..need for my project ASAP

[@idreesattar]

How to estimate other morphometric parameters. Make full tutorial please.

[@meghabanaula9339]

🙏

[@natureadventure4492]

Thank you for this informative tutorial.
I am working with more than one DEM tile. So when I am trying to calculate the flow direction of the mosaic_DEM.. it is showing error 999999 while for single tile it is generating flow direction raster. I am not able to resolve the issue. Can u help me in this?

[@moncyakkara9192]

heyy..please let me know how to resolve he issue

[@anissaabdullahi4053]

Can you please tell me how did you do water catchment

[@geodeltalabs]

czcams.com/video/Ww4JVP4uZi4/video.html

[@mahamanoumar1802]

thanks sir well explained, subscribed. please, how can I place my sampling locations(latitude and longitude ) on stream order map in Arcmap? thanks

[@geodeltalabs]

If you have the xy coordinates in an external CSV file, you can bring them to ArcMap as points using 'Add XY data.

[@mahamanoumar1802]

@@geodeltalabs Thank you so much brother, I did it. I am following you step by step but I don't know where you have got the catchment border at the end (clipping process) of the tutorial? thanks

[@Kush.93]

very informative..thank u loads.. can u please tell me how do i count the number of streams that have a particular order from this obtained vector?

[@geodeltalabs]

One easy way is open the attributes table. Sort the stream order values. Then highlight the ones which have your order of interest (this becomes easy when you first sort it). Somewhere in the bottom of the attributes table, it will show you how many items you are highlighting. That's the number

[@Kush.93]

@@geodeltalabs sir i am confused on one thing...at 11:56 when u selected the number of streams of 4th order,it showed below that there are 28 items selected..but when we see on the map..clearly the number of 4th order sream is only one..I am confused on this same thing..should all these polylines be merged as one?if yes,how?

[@geodeltalabs]

@@Kush.93 Ok, I think i understand your confusion. The shapefile which had 28 items are actually different segments of the same river line of order number 4. Just that when I highlighted the attributes, it looks as one continous river.
I suggest you to do the following. Try to use the 'Dissolve' tool. When dissolving, select the 'grid code' as the corresponding attribute. This will sort of merge all those segments of the same order into one segment, so that finally it will create a shapefile with discreet attributes for each stream order.

[@himanshushekharsahu9883]

Why you put Flow account > 8000 ? Is there any relationship or formula for it? Kindly guide

[@geodeltalabs]

Hi, no.. it's just by looking at the generated flow accumulation values. You can use this values to control your stream network, to have a lot of tributaries, or to have only the major rivers

[@anitakakad4088]

Good, very useful explains
How we can get free version of Arc GIS? Please give advice

[@geodeltalabs]

Hi, ArcGIS is a commercial software

[@latikapatel599]

How to get catchment...

[@Sri_Krish1555]

Siri have some doubt as like in qgis....we did an outflow point in order to get the catchment... what should we to get a catchment shape file in Arcgis

[@geodeltalabs]

Hi, we have done a few tutorials showing how to delineate catchment using ArcGIS. You may check them out :)

[@karthij2709]

Once you get the catchment in raster format, convert it into vector. You will get the boundary of catchment in .shp format.
.shp is common for qgis and Arcgis.
Hope it'll solve.

[@suyoggupta5543]

How did you decide the threshold for flow accumulation

[@geodeltalabs]

It varies depending on how detailed or otherwise you would want to see your river network

[@suklee6109]

Can I clip the DEM data firstly and than get the river?

[@geodeltalabs]

Yes, should be no problem

[@ashutoshgeog7716]

Dear kindly explain why flow accumulation is greater than 8000, 500 or anything how can we decide it.

[@geodeltalabs]

The definition of the number here is the amount of grid cells that would drain into a particular cell. If 80,000 that means flow from 80,000 grid cells drains into that cell. So if you define your flow accumulation range to have only very high numbers, that means you are indirectly picking the large rivers which happens to correspond with very high flow accumulations. Hope this helps.
And btw, if you are the same person who frequently responds to the questions in the MODFLOW google group, I'd like to thank you as well as I have learned quite a lot from the explanations :)

[@soumoylegendquiz7851]

Sir plz tell me how to create catchment layer

[@geodeltalabs]

We have done a number of tutorials showing how to delineate the catchment using both ArcGIS and QGIS :)

[@priyankamehtadiaries]

How can I increase no. Of streams please let me know

[@geodeltalabs]

You can do this by decreasing the spread of the 1st interval

[@priyankamehtadiaries]

Thank you and How can I minimise the threshold value

[@muznakashaf122]

Stream order and connectivity of stream is a same thing?

[@geodeltalabs]

Not sure how you define connectivity in this context. Stream order can also differ based on which method you use to assign the numbers. For example, the numbering of streams based on Strahler method is different from Shreve method, even though both methods are two different ways of defining the order of streams

[@muznakashaf122]

For finding connectivity least cost pathway is used can you please describe what to acquire and how to acquire data for it

[@thimirajayakody8799]

Hello..thank you. Can you tell me, how to create catchment shape file?

[@geodeltalabs]

Hi, there are number of tutorial which we have done demonstrating the steps of demarcating catchments, both using QGIS and ArcGIS. You can have a look and pick the one that fits you from our collection of tutorials :)

[@jackyao1944]

@@geodeltalabs I have the same question,i will share it when i find the answer.

[@jackyao1944]

czcams.com/video/Ww4JVP4uZi4/video.html

[@kuldeepsinghrautela4027]

How to extract watershed upto a specified location?

[@geodeltalabs]

czcams.com/video/Ww4JVP4uZi4/video.html
You can have a look at this tutorial :)

[@kuldeepsinghrautela4027]

@@geodeltalabs thank you so much bro

[@kuldeepsinghrautela4027]

@@geodeltalabs make a tutorial on SWAT model please