High-performance coupled surface-subsurface flow simulation with SERGHEI-SWE-RE

Abstract

This work presents SERGHEI-SWE-RE, a performance-portable, parallel model that couples a fully dynamic two-dimensional Shallow Water Equation (SWE) solver with a three-dimensional Richards Equation (RE) solver within the Kokkos framework to simulate surface–subsurface flow exchange. The model features a modular architecture with sequential coupling strategy, supporting both synchronous and asynchronous executions of surface and subsurface modules. The SERGHEI-SWE-RE model is validated against five benchmark problems incorporating stationary and fluctuating free-surface tests, a tilted v-catchment, a lateral-flow slope without ponding, and a heterogeneous superslab. The results demonstrate good agreement with established models. Asynchronous coupling reduces wall-clock time by up to about 75 % in the superslab case while preserving simulation accuracy. Strong and weak scaling tests on multiple Intel Xeon CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs reveal robust portability, with near-ideal RE scaling and less-satisfactory SWE scaling at high GPU counts, suggesting future improvements on differentiated meshes or more advanced domain decomposition strategies. Overall, the results presented establish SERGHEI-SWE-RE as an efficient, flexible and scalable model for integrated surface-subsurface flow simulations.