The Australian National University and Geoscience Australia are developing a hydrodynamic inundation modelling tool called ANUGA to help simulate the impact of hydrological hazards. The core of ANUGA is a fluid dynamics module, which is based on a finite-volume method for solving the Shallow Water Wave Equation. The study area is represented by a mesh of triangular cells. By solving the governing equation within each cell, water depth and horizontal momentum are tracked over time.

A major capability of ANUGA is its ability to model the process of wetting and drying as water enters and leaves an area. This means that it is suitable for simulating water flow onto a beach or dry land and around structures such as buildings. ANUGA is also capable of modelling hydraulic jumps due to the ability of the finite-volume method to accommodate discontinuities in the solution.

To set up a particular scenario the user specifies the geometry (bathymetry and topography), the initial water level (stage), boundary conditions such as tide, and any forcing terms that may drive the system such as gravity, wind stress or rainfall.

ANUGA is written in the object-oriented programming language Python and has been released as Open Source software at http://sourceforge.net/projects/anuga. See http://datamining.anu.edu.au/~ole/anuga/user_manual/anuga_user_manual.pdf for more background on ANUGA.