Résumé
This paper presents the analytical properties of the solutions of the sensitivity equations for steady-state, two-dimensional shallow water flow. These analytical properties are used to provide guidelines for model calibration and validation. The sensitivity of the water depth/level and that of the longitudinal unit discharge are shown to contain redundant information. Under subcritical conditions, the sensitivities of the flow variables are shown to obey an anisotropic elliptic equation. The main directions of the contour lines for water depth and the longitudinal unit discharge sensitivity are parallel and perpendicular to the flow, while they are diagonal to the flow for the transverse unit discharge sensitivity. Moreover, the sensitivity for all three variables extends farther in the transverse direction than in the longitudinal direction, the anisotropy ratio being a function of the sole Froude number. For supercritical flow, the sensitivity obeys an anisotropic hyperbolic equation. These findings are confirmed by application examples on idealized and real-world simulations. The sensitivities to the geometry, friction coefficient or model boundary conditions are shown to behave in different ways, thus providing different types of information for model calibration and validation. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.