HEC-RAS
The world's most used hydraulic model: free 1D/2D river analysis, sediment, water quality and flood mapping.
The US Bureau of Reclamation's free 2D river model — FHWA's preferred engine for bridge hydraulics.
by US Bureau of Reclamation
SRH-2D (Sedimentation and River Hydraulics — 2D), developed by Yong Lai at the US Bureau of Reclamation, solves depth-averaged flow on flexible meshes with strong wetting-drying behaviour and sediment/mobile-bed capability. FHWA adopted it as the preferred 2D engine for bridge and culvert hydraulic design, which made it a fixture in US transportation projects.
The engine is free; in practice most users run it through Aquaveo's commercial SMS interface for mesh building and visualisation, which is the main cost consideration when comparing it against HEC-RAS 2D.
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.