We derive transparent boundary conditions for the shallow water equations o
ften used as a simple model for both atmospheric and oceanic flows. Then we
ll-posed results are presented when the time discretization is done by the
characteristic-based semi-Lagrange method and the space discretization is d
one by two variants of the mixed finite element methods. Since the mixed fi
nite element discretization is related to the staggered finite difference s
chemes extensively used in geophysical models, the results points to how th
e transparent boundary conditions can be used in the finite difference disc
retization. (C) 2001 IMACS. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights r
eserved.