---
id: engines/r-avaflow
about:
  label: r.avaflow
  description: >-
    Open-source, GIS-supported simulator by Martin Mergili and Shiva P.
    Pudasaini for rapid mass flows such as landslides, debris flows and glacial
    lake outburst floods, including chains of one process feeding the next.
  tags:
    - landslide
    - debris flow
    - mass flow
    - outburst flood
    - simulation
    - grass gis
tool:
  form: open-source simulation tool
  homepage: 'https://www.landslidemodels.org/r.avaflow/'
  cost: non-commercial; no regular support
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: r.avaflow | The mass flow simulation tool
      url: 'https://www.landslidemodels.org/r.avaflow/'
  created: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
import:
  source: openai-linkedin-scrape 2026-10-17
  id: DT029
  kind: enabling_simulator
  family: enabling_technology_and_adjacent_work
  priority: supporting
  verified: false
  posts:
    - P143
  posters:
    - 'Kshitij Dahal, PhD'
domains:
  - water
---
r.avaflow simulates complex, cascading mass flows of up to three phases over any topography. Martin Mergili (University of Graz, Austria) and Shiva P. Pudasaini are the authors named for citation. The solver uses the NOC-TVD numerical scheme and offers a Voellmy-type model, a simplified multi-phase flow model, or an equilibrium-of-motion model for less rapid flows, with entrainment, deformation control, fragmentation, dispersion and phase transformations.

It is built for process chains: a landslide that becomes a debris flow, a flood, a rock glacier or glacial lake outburst flood, each stage feeding the next. The training material walks through such chains in a landscape called Cascadia. Starting mass comes from raster maps or hydrographs, several simulations can run in parallel for sensitivity analysis and optimisation, and output can be rendered in 3D or virtual reality.

It is open source and runs with GRASS GIS; the 4.0G variant installs the Python-based companion module r.lakefill, and a 4.0W variant also exists. The makers describe it as non-commercial software without regular support. An integrated user interface, a manual, training data with start scripts, a publications list and older versions are provided from the project page.

The current release is r.avaflow 4.0 Revision 7, released 2025-09-02.