HEC-RAS
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
Jacobs' 1D/2D river and floodplain suite — a UK practice staple with a genuinely useful free tier.
by Jacobs
Flood Modeller (formerly ISIS) is Jacobs' river modelling suite: a mature 1D solver with a deep structure library, fast 2D engines (including GPU), and coupling to TUFLOW and estuary tools. Alongside TUFLOW it is one of the two engines UK flood-risk practice standardised on, and its 1D solver still handles long networks of hydraulic structures exceptionally well.
Uniquely among commercial river packages it ships a free tier (limited node count) that is genuinely usable for small schemes and learning — a sensible on-ramp before committing to a licence.
Other hydraulics & river systems tools covering similar workflow stages.
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
FHWA's free culvert analysis program — the reference implementation of HDS-5 culvert hydraulics.
Open-source 2D shallow-water modelling in Python from Geoscience Australia — strong for dam break and tsunami.
ETH Zurich's free 2D hydraulics and morphodynamics simulator — rivers, sediment and hazard mapping.
GPU reimplementation of the CaMa-Flood global river routing model — continental flood simulation on PyTorch/Triton.
Deltares' open flexible-mesh suite for rivers, estuaries and coasts — hydrodynamics to morphology.