This Quick Start Guide introduces hydrologic and hydraulic (H&H) modeling concepts to beginners. Comprehensive H&H modeling begins with understanding how rainfall and snowmelt generate surface runoff, how this water travels through a watershed, and how these processes can be represented digitally. GeoSWMM combines powerful ArcGIS Pro–based tools with the physics-based SWMM simulation engine, allowing users to model how water moves across the landscape and through drainage systems. GeoSWMM’s ArcGIS Pro–based tools help process digital data to gain locational insights, efficiently and accurately prepare model inputs, and visualize data in maps, tables, and charts.
Stormwater modeling in ArcGIS Pro often begins with datasets from various sources, including CAD drawings, field surveys, scanned as-builts, and spreadsheets—each with different formats and varying levels of accuracy. While these sources contain valuable information, they are rarely created with GIS-based modeling in mind. As a result, they often introduce issues like disconnected pipes, duplicate IDs, misaligned nodes, and missing attributes. These problems can lead to simulation instability, flawed analysis, and time-consuming rework.
As cities expand and climate change intensifies rainfall patterns, urban planners and engineers face unprecedented stormwater management challenges. Increasing impervious surfaces, overloaded sewer networks, and frequent urban flooding require accurate, efficient modeling tools.