The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has engaged the NSW Department of Commerce's Manly Hydraulics Laboratory (MHL) to prepare a report summarising the features, applications and limitations of hydrologic and hydraulic computer modelling software commonly used in floodplain risk management in NSW.

The need for the review stems from the advancements in hydrologic and hydraulic modelling software packages in recent years and the need to keep local councils and DNR flood officers up to date and informed on these developments.

The review has been undertaken in collaboration with model providers, users and interpreters, with the intention of highlighting the strengths of the various models with a view to raising the general level of understanding of the models involved and building confidence in their use. This should lead to better decision-making in undertaking flood studies and floodplain risk management studies.

The review aims to provide a basic level of understanding of the floodplain risk management process, a centralised source of general information on commonly used hydrologic and hydraulic modelling software, and limited guidance on the suitability of modelling software packages to typical applications encountered in floodplain risk management.

The review does not seek to be a comprehensive technical manual of floodplain risk management and modelling. In addition, although the computer modelling software packages reviewed are tools to set up and run a simulation of a model and are not technically a model themselves, they are sometimes referred to as models in the context of this report.