A new modified Galerkin / Finite Element Method is proposed for the numerical solution of the fully nonlinear shallow water wave equations. The new numerical method allows the use of low-order Lagrange finite element spaces, despite the fact that the
system contains third order spatial partial derivatives for the depth averaged velocity of the fluid. After studying the efficacy and the conservation properties of the new numerical method, we proceed with the validation of the new numerical model and boundary conditions by comparing the numerical solutions with laboratory experiments and with available theoretical asymptotic results.
We consider a class of Boussinesq systems of Bona-Smith type in two space dimensions approximating surface wave flows modelled by the three-dimensional Euler equations. We show that various initial-boundary-value problems for these systems, posed on
a bounded plane domain are well posed locally in time. In the case of reflective boundary conditions, the systems are discretized by a modified Galerkin method which is proved to converge in $L^2$ at an optimal rate. Numerical experiments are presented with the aim of simulating two-dimensional surface waves in complex plane domains with a variety of initial and boundary conditions, and comparing numerical solutions of Bona-Smith systems with analogous solutions of the BBM-BBM system.
