HYDROPOT: A Reproducible Geospatial Framework for Hydrological Descriptor Extraction and Regional Hydropower Screening in Ungauged Basins: A Case Study in the Lazio Region (Italy)

Assessing hydropower potential in ungauged basins requires consistent derivation of key hydrological variables from heterogeneous geospatial and climatic data. Conventional GIS-based approaches often rely on fragmented, user-dependent workflows, limiting reproducibility and comparability. This study presents HYDROPOT, a web-based geospatial framework for the automated and reproducible extraction of hydrologically relevant basin descriptors for regional-scale hydropower screening. The platform integrates centralized datasets with server-side geoprocessing to delineate upstream catchments and compute quantitative basin descriptors, including drainage area (2–400 km2), Curve Number (CN), concentration time, and spatially aggregated monthly thermo-pluviometric variables derived from 95 stations over the 2004–2022 period. These descriptors provide essential inputs for rainfall–runoff modeling and preliminary discharge estimation, thereby supporting (although not directly performing) the assessment of water availability in ungauged basins. By eliminating manual preprocessing, HYDROPOT ensures consistent and reproducible analyses, reducing user-induced variability and improving comparability across applications, without implying increased predictive accuracy. The framework, applied to the Lazio Region (Central Italy) over the 2004–2022 period, enables rapid and transparent screening of river reaches, offering a scalable decision-support tool for preliminary, input-based screening in early-stage small hydropower planning.