Giswater — The Complete Guide: Free Water, Sewer and Drainage Network Management in QGIS
Giswater connects two worlds that usually live apart: the GIS store of an urban water network and its hydraulic model. The network is kept once in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database, edited from QGIS, and the model is exported from it for calculation — without rebuilding it for every project.
Giswater
Giswater Association / BGEO Open GIS
A QGIS plugin backed by PostGIS for managing water supply, sewer and drainage networks, linked to EPANET and SWMM models.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- One network database — water supply, sewer and urban drainage in the same system.
- Editing in QGIS — drawing and updating pipes, manholes, valves and other features.
- Asset state tracking — planned, operational or obsolete, with documents attached to each feature.
- Export for calculation — EPANET for supply networks and EPA SWMM for sewer and drainage.
- Coupled modelling — 1D/2D links with IBER for flood analysis.
What to know before you start
Giswater is not a one-click install: PostgreSQL and PostGIS must be set up separately and the schema configured. Some functions are flagged as experimental by the developers, and most documentation and community activity is in Spanish. It suits water utilities and municipalities willing to invest in the setup.
Related tools
For the supply-network calculation engine — EPANET. For sewer and urban drainage — EPA SWMM. For the database underneath — PostGIS.
EPANET
US Environmental Protection Agency
Water distribution network model — flows, pressures and water quality. The engine behind most commercial tools.
Get it from the vendor
SWMM
US Environmental Protection Agency
Urban drainage model — runoff, sewers, detention and infiltration, including runoff quality.
Get it from the vendor
QGIS
QGIS.org
Open-source GIS for spatial analysis, layer work and map production.
Get it from the vendor
PostGIS
PostGIS Project Steering Committee (OSGeo)
An extension to the PostgreSQL database that adds storage, indexing and analysis of geospatial data through SQL queries.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
Giswater is a serious free system for managing urban water infrastructure that bridges GIS and hydraulic modelling. The setup is demanding, but the reward is a single data source for the whole network.