Geospatial capabilities are available in HEC-RAS to assist the hydraulic engineer to create and refine the model geometry and analyze computed results. This capability to visualize the combination of geometric data (terrain, river networks, cross section locations, cross section parameters, 2D meshes, etc.) and simulation results (water surface depths, velocities, etc.) allows HEC-RAS users to more readily identify hydraulic model deficiencies and make improvements.
While HEC-RAS Mapper is not intended to replace a GIS, as it provides very hydraulic-modeling specific tools, it has a tremendous number of geospatial capabilities for working with geospatial data. Not only does RAS Mapper provide the user with tools to edit HEC-RAS data layers, the editing tools can be used to edit generic shapefiles. Not only can you visualize HEC-RAS results, but you can symbolize and query information in numerous ways to assist in the analysis of the river hydraulic modeling.
This document will discuss how to use the HEC-RAS Mapper to develop an HEC-RAS model, perform mapping of model output to view and compare results, and publish map products.