To accurately predict the large-scale ground vibration induced by flood discharge and energy dissipation of high dams, a method combining prototype observation with hydraulic model test is proposed. Excitation and response were obtained separately in the present method, avoiding the difficulty of accurately simulating the propagation process. The correlation between excitation and response is used to predict the ground vibration. The results show that the vibration process is characterized with low-frequency, continuous, stationary and random features. The main frequency of the ground vibration is 1. 5Hz to 3. 5Hz, closely related to the geological conditions, flood discharge and operation modes. There is a positive correlation between the ground vibration response and the surface fluctuating pressure which is obtained by filtering and synthesizing of the point fluctuating pressure in the model test. Under different discharge levels and operation modes, the error between the predicted and the measured response values is within 10%, indicating a high prediction accuracy for the proposed method.