Regulatory Acceptance¶
ANUGA is accepted by regulators in multiple jurisdictions for flood studies and development assessments. As an open-source solver developed by a national geological survey (Geoscience Australia), it carries strong institutional credibility.
Acceptance by Jurisdiction¶
| Jurisdiction | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Geoscience Australia | Developed by GA | Used for national tsunami risk assessments and flood studies |
| Wollongong City Council, NSW | Accepted | Used in flood studies for development applications |
| ACT Government | Accepted | Used in Canberra flood mapping projects |
| Pacific Island Countries | Accepted | Used in PACFLOOD tsunami inundation mapping (Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu) |
| UK Environment Agency | Not tested | ANUGA not currently listed; TUFLOW and MIKE+ are standard |
| FEMA (USA) | Not standard | ANUGA could be submitted for approval on a case-by-case basis |
| Australian state governments | Varies | Generally accepted where the modeller can demonstrate competence and validation |
Key Points for Regulatory Submissions¶
Open-Source Advantage¶
- Full transparency: regulators can inspect the solver source code
- No black box: every calculation is auditable
- Reproducible: anyone can run the same model and verify results
- GPL licence: free to use, no licence cost barrier for review
Validation Evidence¶
When submitting ANUGA results to a regulator:
- Reference the ANUGA validation suite: 30+ benchmarks covering analytical solutions, lab experiments, and field cases
- Cite peer-reviewed publications: 100+ papers using ANUGA
- Include a local benchmark: run a known flood event in the study area to demonstrate model performance
- Provide the model files: ANUGA's portable format means reviewers can re-run the model
Institutional Backing¶
ANUGA is developed by:
- Geoscience Australia: Australia's national geoscience agency (Department of Industry, Science and Resources)
- Australian National University: Mathematical Sciences Institute
This is government-agency-grade institutional backing, comparable to the organisations behind other major hydraulic solvers.
Hydrata Cloud and Regulatory Work¶
Hydrata runs the same ANUGA solver and the same pipeline. For regulatory submissions:
- Results are directly comparable to running ANUGA locally on the same inputs
- Model files are exportable in portable
scenario.jsonformat - The
run_anugapackage (MIT, open-source) handles file translation - Reviewers can re-run any Hydrata simulation locally without a Hydrata account
Growing Acceptance¶
As AI-assisted modeling becomes standard practice, regulators will need to evaluate platforms that support automated workflows. Hydrata keeps an activity log, written by the Hydrata API that both the MCP server and scripts call, of:
- Every change an AI agent makes or attempts with a live key or connection, including refused ones, and every API write made by a script that signed in with a username and password
- Who did it, when, and what it cost
- Human acts: reviewing agent-written inputs, consenting to a run's cost, and publishing
The log is append-only and can be downloaded. Reads and ordinary edits made in the browser are not logged. Inputs an agent wrote stay marked with the agent that wrote them, and each person's review of them is recorded with who reviewed it and when. Reviewing an input is not a chartered engineer's verification of the model. See Agent activity and controls.