LISFLOOD-OS — The Complete Guide: The EU’s Distributed Hydrological Model
LISFLOOD-OS is a distributed hydrological model developed at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and used, among other things, in European flood forecasting systems. It computes the water balance on a spatial grid and routes flow through rivers and reservoirs.
LISFLOOD-OS
European Commission Joint Research Centre
A distributed rainfall-runoff and river routing model from the EU Joint Research Centre, for catchments and flood forecasting.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- A full water balance — rain, snow, evaporation, infiltration, groundwater and runoff.
- A distributed model — computed in every grid cell rather than averaged over the catchment.
- River and reservoir routing — discharges along the drainage network.
- Climate scenarios — long runs to study change over decades.
- Discharge forecasting — a basis for flood warning systems.
What to know
Preparing the spatial input data takes significant work and companion tools. On Windows the recommended way to run it is Docker; direct installation targets Linux and macOS. The licence is EUPL-1.2, free for any use including commercial work. It is a model for large catchments, not for drainage design of a single site or neighbourhood.
Related tools
For an agricultural catchment and water quality model — SWAT. For storm-event hydrology — HEC-HMS. For preparing spatial layers — QGIS.
SWAT
Texas A&M AgriLife / USDA-ARS
A watershed model — runoff, erosion, nutrients and pesticides over decades.
Get it from the vendor
HEC-HMS
US Army Corps of Engineers
Rainfall-runoff hydrological model — infiltration, unit hydrograph and routing. Pairs with HEC-RAS.
Get it from the vendor
QGIS
QGIS.org
Open-source GIS for spatial analysis, layer work and map production.
Get it from the vendor
GDAL
OSGeo
Command-line tools and a library to convert, reproject, clip and process geodata — DEMs, GeoTIFF, Shapefile and more.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
LISFLOOD-OS puts a model used for continental flood forecasting in the hands of anyone willing to prepare the data. For large catchments and climate studies it is a strong, free option.