PROProduction

Classify wetlands into hydrogeomorphic classes using DEM context and wetland masks.

workflow pro

Workflow Narrative

Wetland Hydrogeomorphic Classification

Problem It Solves

Which mapped wetland regions belong to key HGM classes, and where is class confidence high enough for permitting decisions?

Who It Is For

Wetland scientists, permitting consultants, and mitigation planners.

Primary User

Environmental consulting firms, permitting agencies, and mitigation banking organizations.

What It Does

Classifies wetland mask cells into HGM classes using terrain context.
Builds confidence surfaces for wetland classification reliability.
Polygonizes connected wetland regions with region-level attributes.

How It Works

Computes local terrain signatures in wetland-mask cells from DEM gradients and relief context.
Assigns HGM class codes using rule-based thresholds over those signatures.
Aggregates connected components into polygons and summarizes dominant class and mean confidence.
Indicative formula: class = rule(slope, relief, wetness_proxy), confidence from distance-to-threshold stability.

Why It Wins

Produces connected-region polygons with explicit confidence and class attributes, not just cell-level labels.

Typical Buying Trigger

Permitting or mitigation workflows require polygon deliverables with defensible classification metadata.

Typical Presets

default for full region polygon extraction.
lower max_polygon_features for very large AOIs.

Inputs

Parameter	Optional	Description
dem, wetland_mask	no	DEM and wetland mask defining candidate wetland extent and hydrogeomorphic context.
max_polygon_features	no	Maximum number of polygon features to emit for mapped wetland units.

Outputs

Parameter	Type	Description
hgm_class	GeoTIFF	Categorical hydrogeomorphic wetland class raster.
confidence	GeoTIFF	Confidence layer quantifying reliability of modeled outputs.
wetland_polygons	GeoPackage	Vectorized wetland class polygons for mapping and reporting.
summary	JSON	Machine-readable summary report containing run metadata, QA diagnostics, and key metrics.
html_report	HTML	Human-readable customer-facing report generated from the summary contract for stakeholder review and QA traceability.

Python Example

import whitebox_workflows as wbw

wbe = wbw.WbEnvironment(include_pro=True, tier="pro")

hgm, conf, polys, summary = wbe.wetland_hydrogeomorphic_classification(
    dem="data/dem.tif",
    wetland_mask="data/wetlands.tif",
    max_polygon_features=10000,
    output_prefix="output/wetland_hgm",
)

print(hgm)
print(conf)
print(polys)
print(summary)

License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

Project Links

WbW Homepage User Manual Learn More