Conventional versus pre-balanced forms of the shallow-water equations solved using finite-volume method

• HLL schemes solving pre-balanced and conventional forms of SWEs are identical.
• HLLC schemes solving pre-balanced and conventional forms of SWEs are identical.
• FORCE schemes solving pre-balanced and conventional forms of SWEs are identical.
• SLIC schemes solving pre-balanced and conventional forms of SWEs are identical.

In the existing literature, various forms of governing equations have been proposed to solve the shallow-water equations (SWEs). Recently, attention has been dedicated to the so-called “pre-balanced” form, because finite-volume schemes that are designed on this basis satisfy the well-balanced property. In this study, we theoretically investigate the relationship between numerical schemes devised using approximate Riemann solvers in the framework of finite-volume methods for solving the conventional form of the SWEs and its “pre-balanced” variant. We find that the numerical schemes for solving these two forms of the SWEs turn out to be identical when some widely employed upwind or centered approximate Riemann solvers are adopted for the numerical flux evaluations, such as the HLL (Harten, Lax, and van Leer), HLLC (HLL solver with restoring the contact surface), FORCE (first-order centered), and SLIC (slope limited centered) schemes. Some numerical experiments are performed, which verify the validity of the result of our theoretical analysis. The theoretical and numerical results suggest that the “pre-balanced” SWEs variant is not superior to the conventional one for solving the SWEs using approximate Riemann solvers.