ANUGA
Open Source
Open-source 2D shallow-water modelling in Python from Geoscience Australia — strong for dam break and tsunami.
19 tools · Topic
2D Hydraulic Modelling Software
Two-dimensional shallow-water solvers have become standard for floodplain, urban and breach modelling. The list includes free engines such as HEC-RAS 2D, SRH-2D and Iber, open-source solvers (some GPU-accelerated), commercial suites, and post-processing tools such as pyHMT2D and Crayfish.
BASEMENT
Free
ETH Zurich's free 2D hydraulics and morphodynamics simulator — rivers, sediment and hazard mapping.
Crayfish
Open Source
QGIS plugin for exploring mesh model results — animate TUFLOW, Telemac and HEC-RAS 2D outputs in the GIS.
Delft3D FM
Open Source
Deltares' open flexible-mesh suite for rivers, estuaries and coasts — hydrodynamics to morphology.
FABDEM
Academic-only
Copernicus DEM with forests and buildings stripped out — the bare-earth DEM flood and drainage models actually want.
FastFlood
Free
Rapid flood modelling in the browser — steady-state inundation estimates in seconds, anywhere on earth.
Flood Modeller
Freemium
Jacobs' 1D/2D river and floodplain suite — a UK practice staple with a genuinely useful free tier.
HEC-RAS
FreeVerified
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
Iber
Free
Free Spanish 2D hydraulic model — flow, turbulence, sediment and habitat modules behind a full GUI.
InfoWorks ICM
Commercial
Autodesk's integrated catchment model — the heavyweight for large sewer networks and coupled 2D flooding.
LISFLOOD-FP
Open Source
The Bristol raster flood model behind global flood maps — open source with GPU-accelerated solvers.
MIKE+
Commercial
DHI's unified platform for rivers, urban drainage and distribution networks — successor to MIKE 11/MIKE URBAN.
PCSWMM
Commercial
CHI's commercial GIS front-end for SWMM — the most direct productivity upgrade for serious SWMM users.
RIVIA
Open Source
A modern Python interface for HEC-RAS project parsing, simulation automation, and result visualization.
SFINCS
Open Source
Deltares' reduced-complexity compound flood model — coastal, fluvial and pluvial drivers in one fast solver.
SRH-2D
Free
The US Bureau of Reclamation's free 2D river model — FHWA's preferred engine for bridge hydraulics.
TUFLOW
Commercial
Benchmark-setting commercial 1D/2D flood engine with GPU acceleration — dominant in AU/UK flood studies.
openTELEMAC
Open Source
EDF's open-source finite-element suite for free-surface flow — 2D/3D rivers, estuaries, waves and sediment.
pyHMT2D
Open Source
Python control and post-processing for 2D hydraulic models — SRH-2D and HEC-RAS 2D results to VTK and beyond.