Survey of Programs for Water-Surface Profiles

Several highly developed computer programs are available for determining water surface profiles for subcritical flow in rivers and channels. The needs for fast, accurate and inexpensive computation of profiles, and for more sophisticated techniques, can be satisfied by computer programs currently being developed. Current capabilities and limitations of computer programs for determining water surface profiles are reviewed. The need to review detailed output because of the complications of manually selecting and describing representative cross-sections is stressed. Several current procedures for determining profiles over and through bridges are presented, and the need for more generalized and more accurate methods is cited. Computer program capabilities of the near future in the area of water surface profiles—as well as some current limitations that probably will be surmounted through the additional capabilities of computers, computer languages and advanced engineering techniques such as aerial photography—are analyzed.