ANUGA — The Complete Guide: A 2D Model for Floods, Tsunamis and Storm Surge
ANUGA is a Python library that solves the shallow water equations with a finite volume method on an unstructured triangular mesh. It was developed at the Australian National University and Geoscience Australia and is now maintained by a community. It is used for flood mapping, tsunami inundation and storm surge.
ANUGA
ANU and Geoscience Australia (anuga community)
A 2D shallow-water model for floods, tsunamis and storm surge on unstructured meshes, as a Python library.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- A 2D model — overland flow, including wetting and drying of cells.
- Unstructured mesh — small triangles where it matters and larger ones elsewhere.
- Rainfall, walls and embankments — water sources and structures that shape the flow.
- Parallel and GPU runs — to speed up large models.
- Pure Python workflow — set-up, run and post-processing in one script.
Who it suits
Water and coastal engineers who are comfortable with code and want to build many scenarios or plug the model into an automated process. There is no graphical interface, so anyone who prefers working in windows will find HEC-RAS easier. The licence is Apache-2.0, free for any use including commercial work.
Related tools
For a hydraulic model with a graphical interface — HEC-RAS. For 2D river and coastal models — TELEMAC-MASCARET. For nearshore waves — SWASH.
HEC-RAS
US Army Corps of Engineers
1D/2D hydraulic model for rivers, bridges and culverts, with floodplain mapping. The world standard.
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TELEMAC-MASCARET
EDF / Consortium
Hydrodynamic system for rivers and coasts on unstructured meshes — flow, waves, sediment and quality.
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SWASH
Delft University of Technology
Non-hydrostatic coastal flow model — waves in harbours, overtopping of structures and estuary currents.
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BASEMENT
ETH Zurich, Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW)
One- and two-dimensional hydrodynamic and morphodynamic simulation of rivers, floods and sediment transport, from ETH Zurich.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
ANUGA is a serious, free 2D flood model for people who think in scripts. Python’s flexibility is its big strength, and the lack of a graphical interface is the price.