We examine the effect of dissipation on traveling waves in nonlinear dispersive systems modeled by Benjamin- Bona- Mahony (BBM)-like equations. In the absence of dissipation the BBM-like equations are found to support soliton and compacton/anticompac
ton solutions depending on whether the dispersive term is linear or nonlinear. We study the influence of increasing nonlinearity of the medium on the soliton- and compacton dynamics. The dissipative effect is found to convert the solitons either to undular bores or to shock-like waves depending on the degree of nonlinearity of the equations. The anticompacton solutions are also transformed to undular bores by the effect of dissipation. But the compactons tend to vanish due to viscous effects. The local oscillatory structures behind the bores and/or shock-like waves in the case of solitons and anticompactons are found to depend sensitively both on the coefficient of viscosity and solution of the unperturbed problem.
We point out that use of the first integral method ( J.Phys. A :Math. Gen. 35 (2002) 343 ) for solving nonlinear evolution equations gives only particular solutions of equations that model conservative systems. On the other hand, for dissipative dyna
mical systems, the method leads to incorrect solutions of the equations.
