An updated review on watershed algorithms

Abstract

Watershed identification is one of the main areas of study in the field of topography. It is critical in countless applications including sustainability and flood risk evaluation. Beyond its original conception, the watershed algorithm has proved to be a very useful and powerful tool in many different applications beside topography, such as image segmentation. Although there are a few publications reviewing the state-of-the-art of watershed algorithms, they are now outdated. In this chapter we review the most important works done on watershed algorithms, including the problem over-segmentation and parallel approaches. Open problems and future work are also investigated.