How do I get a HEC-RAS or ANUGA flood model verified before submission?

Hydrata is a verification platform for consultants. Upload your model (HEC-RAS .zip or ANUGA project) and run a model-ingest review, mass-balance audit, mesh-quality assessment, parameter-sensitivity check, and a jurisdiction-checklist comparison against your design criteria. Results come back as a signed verification in a live web portal a reviewer can comment on in geospatial context. The platform is open source and auditable; every result links back to the data that produced it. Hydrata is not the engineer-of-record; the client's engineer remains responsible for the design.

What is a hydraulic model verification report?

A verification report documents the steps a hydraulic model passed before submission: calibration and validation against observations, internal consistency checks (mass balance, mesh quality, boundary conditions, parameter sensitivity), and a comparison to the applicable jurisdiction checklist against the consultant's design criteria. It is accompanied by raw outputs and a live web checklist, so a reviewer can trace every claim back to its evidence.

Why do flood models get sent back by reviewers?

Most send-backs are not engineering errors. They are methodology, criteria interpretation, or presentation gaps that were never locked down up front. Moving goalposts inside the review cycle, model multiplicity across the same site, and criterion ambiguity (e.g. 'culvert running 70% full' interpreted two ways) are the recurring failure modes. Hydrata's verification workflow captures these feedback loops before the model leaves the office, by enforcing unskippable checklists and tying every reviewer comment to the geospatial context of the model rather than to a generic input variable.

Hydrata

Validate. Verify. Comply. Communicate.

The verification platform that lets consultants prove, with evidence, that their hydraulic models are right.

Defensible flood modelling

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What we do

Validate

Mass-balance audit, mesh-quality assessment, parameter sensitivity. Catch the issues a reviewer would catch, before the model leaves your office.

Verify

Bring whatever existing hydraulic model input data and results you have. Get a signed verification in 5 working days, every check traceable to its evidence in a live review portal.

Comply

Jurisdiction-checklist comparison against your design criteria. Every item ticked, every tick linked to its source.

Communicate

Live web portal. Reviewers drop comments tied to the geospatial context of the model, not as generic input-variable changes that ripple across the project.

Two Ways to Verify

Mode A

Verify it yourself

Self-serve platform. You operate it.

Upload a finished model, the platform runs the automated checks (mass balance, mesh quality, parameter sensitivity, jurisdiction checklist), and you can run ANUGA in the cloud. API and MCP access for power users.

Import topography and draw model boundaries
Run models in your browser using cloud compute
View and query results interactively
Jurisdiction-checklist comparison
Download raw and processed results

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Mode B

Have Hydrata verify it

Done-for-you advisory. Our engineers operate it.

Send us your model. A Hydrata analyst runs the verification engagement and delivers a signed verification in a live review portal, with a chartered-engineer sign-off. Independent third-party review.

Model-ingest review and mass-balance audit
Mesh-quality assessment and parameter-sensitivity check
Jurisdiction-checklist comparison against your design criteria
Chartered-engineer sign-off on the verification
Live web portal for reviewer comments in geospatial context

Talk to us about an engagement

How It Works

Upload

Share your model: HEC-RAS .zip or ANUGA project. Run the checks yourself on the platform, or send it to our team for a done-for-you engagement.

Audit

Model-ingest review, mass-balance audit, mesh-quality assessment, parameter-sensitivity check, and jurisdiction-checklist comparison.

Deliver

A signed verification in a live web portal: raw outputs and reviewer comments in context, every check traceable to its evidence. Five working days, end to end.

Who Uses Hydrata

Consultancies

You're submitting to an owner's engineer or independent reviewer. Provide the documentation. It gets you approval on the first cycle.

Local authorities and reviewers

You retain regulatory responsibility but don't have in-house flood capability. Outsource technical review for stormwater and floodplain consultants serving municipal clients. Keep the audit trail.

Dam owners and water utilities

Multi-dam systems, PMP studies, spillway capacity, dam-break inundation. Independent verification of your hydrologic and hydraulic models, with the audit trail to back it up.

Researchers (ANUGA + Python)

Run ANUGA in the cloud, no infrastructure required. Open-source codebase.

Developer Tools

Hydrata exposes a Model Context Protocol endpoint so AI assistants can query verification jobs directly.

Show example: Claude Code connecting to the Hydrata MCP

Claude Code + Hydrata MCP

# Connect your AI assistant to Hydrata
$ claude mcp add hydrata https://hydrata.com/mcp/ \
    --transport streamable-http --header "Authorization: Bearer $HYDRATA_TOKEN"

> Create a flood model for Merewether, NSW using a 5m DEM
  Tool: create_project("Merewether Flood Study")           OK
  Tool: upload_dem(project_id=42, file="merewether_5m.tif")  OK
  Tool: create_scenario(friction=0.03, rainfall="100yr_6hr") OK
  Tool: run_simulation(scenario_id=87)                      OK
  Tool: get_results(run_id=201)                             OK

  Simulation complete. Peak depth: 1.42m at outlet.
  Results: https://hydrata.com/catalogue/merewether-flood-depth-201