Introduction

This document presents RiverFlow2D model instructional material and tutorials to facilitate the application of several model components using QGIS. RiverFlow2D is a software system based on the RiverFlow2D model developed by Hydronia LLC.

RiverFlow2D is a combined hydrologic and hydrodynamic, mobile bed, and pollutant transport finite-volume model for rivers, estuaries, coastal areas, and floodplains. It can simulate floods and inundation over complex terrain at high resolution and with remarkable stability, accuracy and speed. The use of adaptive triangular-cell meshes enables the flow field to be resolved around key features in difficult river environments.

Hydronia computational engines use an accurate, fast and stable finite-volume solution method that eliminates the boundary and hot start difficulties of some two-dimensional flexible mesh models. RiverFlow2D also includes capability to represent dam or levee breaches and can integrate hydraulic structures such as culverts, weirs, bridges, and gates. The hydrologic capabilities include spatially distributed rainfall, evaporation and infiltration. This current version can integrate the effect of spatially distributed wind stresses on the water surface.

The user interface of Hydronia models is based on QGIS, a powerful software for the analysis of geographic information systems of free distribution. This software system integrated with GMSH mesh generation plugin provides interactive functions to generate and refine the finite-volume flexible mesh, and uses familiar GIS objects to construct a high level representation of the model. QGIS also offers a complete set of visualization tools that include rendering, for the representation of the results generated by the model.