BASEMENT — The Complete Guide: River Hydrodynamics and Bed Changes From ETH Zurich
BASEMENT was developed at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of ETH Zurich, and it models flow and bed changes in rivers. Water engineers use it for flood mapping, river restoration design and assessing erosion and deposition.
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 vendorWhat you get
- BASEMD — a module for one-dimensional systems.
- BASEHPC — two-dimensional flow, with the option of GPU-accelerated runs.
- Sediment transport — bed load and suspended load in both modules.
- Additional models — turbulence, vegetation and particle transport.
- Windows and Linux — installed locally on both.
Licence and what to know
According to ETH Zurich the software is available free of charge, including for commercial use. Before downloading you submit contact details: name, email, company and country. It is free, closed-source software — not open source. Results from different versions may differ, so it is best to finish a project with the version you started it in.
Related tools
For a well-known 1D and 2D hydraulic model — HEC-RAS. For a river modelling environment with several solvers — iRIC. For an open-source river and coastal model — TELEMAC-MASCARET.
HEC-RAS
US Army Corps of Engineers
1D/2D hydraulic model for rivers, bridges and culverts, with floodplain mapping. The world standard.
Get it from the vendor
iRIC
iRIC Project
A platform for simulating river flow, bed changes, sediment transport and flooding, with a range of solvers.
Get it from the vendor
TELEMAC-MASCARET
EDF / Consortium
Hydrodynamic system for rivers and coasts on unstructured meshes — flow, waves, sediment and quality.
Get it from the vendorSRH-2D — 2D Flow and Sediment Transport Model
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Two-dimensional hydraulic model for streams and rivers, including sediment transport and bed morphology.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
When the question is not only where the water will go but also how the riverbed will change, BASEMENT is a strong free tool with a solid academic background.