Delft3D FM
Open Source
Deltares' open flexible-mesh suite for rivers, estuaries and coasts — hydrodynamics to morphology.
BASEMENT
ActiveETH Zurich's free 2D hydraulics and morphodynamics simulator — rivers, sediment and hazard mapping.
by ETH Zurich (VAW)
- Pricing
- Free
- License
- Freeware (ETH licence)
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Ecosystem
- QGIS (BASEmesh)
- Platform
- Windows, Linux
About BASEMENT
BASEMENT, from ETH Zurich's Laboratory of Hydraulics (VAW), simulates 2D unsteady flow with sediment transport and morphodynamics — bedload, suspended load and bed evolution — with a GPU-accelerated solver in recent versions. Swiss flood-hazard and river-restoration practice leans on it heavily, and its sediment capabilities exceed most free competitors.
It is freeware rather than open source, with high-quality documentation and tutorials. Pre- and post-processing typically happens in QGIS via the BASEmesh plugin, keeping the whole workflow licence-free.
Where it fits in the workflow
TerrainCatchmentRainfallRunoffRoutingHydraulicsMappingReporting
Appears in collections
- Alternatives to HEC-RAS
Free and commercial hydraulic engines worth knowing when HEC-RAS is not the answer.
Alternatives to BASEMENT
Ranked by the topics, categories and workflow stages they share with BASEMENT.
HEC-RAS
FreeVerified
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
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.
Flood Modeller
Freemium
Jacobs' 1D/2D river and floodplain suite — a UK practice staple with a genuinely useful free tier.