iRIC — The Complete Guide: A Free Environment for River Flow and Bed Changes
iRIC is a working environment for analysing river flow and bed changes that brings mesh preparation, running solvers and viewing results into one interface. It combines solvers from the USGS and from RIC-Nays, alongside additional solvers for floods, driftwood and inundation.
iRIC
iRIC Project
A platform for simulating river flow, bed changes, sediment transport and flooding, with a range of solvers.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- One interface — mesh, boundary conditions, runs and results in one place.
- A range of solvers — choose the solver that fits the problem.
- 2D river models — depths and velocities along the channel.
- Sediment and bed changes — erosion and deposition over time.
- Flood mapping — dedicated solvers for inundation and driftwood.
Licence and what to know
Under the terms of use, iRIC contents are free for both commercial and non-commercial use. When you publish results, you must indicate the use with the iRIC logo. Downloading requires registration, and the program is free but not open source. It runs on 64-bit Windows only.
Related tools
For a river and sediment model from ETH Zurich — BASEMENT. For a 1D and 2D hydraulic model — HEC-RAS. For another 2D river model — SRH-2D.
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 vendor
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 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 vendor
TELEMAC-MASCARET
EDF / Consortium
Hydrodynamic system for rivers and coasts on unstructured meshes — flow, waves, sediment and quality.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
iRIC saves you from switching between pre-processing tools, solvers and viewers. For engineers working on rivers in Windows, it is a free package worth knowing — just remember the logo requirement when publishing.