Modified ’irrotational’ Shallow Water Equations for significantly varying bottoms. Submitted

Abstract. In the present study we propose a modified version of the nonlinear shallow water (Saint-Venant) equations for irrotational surface waves in the case when the bottom undergoes some significant variations in space and time. The model is derived from a variational principle by choosing an appropriate shallow water ansatz and imposing some constraints. Our derivation procedure does not explicitly involve any small parameter and is straightforward. The novel system is a non-dispersive non-hydrostatic extension of the classical Saint-Venant equations. We also propose a finite volume discretization of the obtained hyperbolic system. Several test-cases are presented to highlight the added value of the new model. Some implications to tsunami wave modeling are also discussed. Content