Abstract: The kinetic flux vector splitting (KFVS) method was used to simulate t he shallow water long wave equation. Based on the analogy between the gas dynami c equation and shallow water long wave equation in combination with the TVD fini te difference scheme, a numerical scheme for the shallow water long wave equatio n is proposed. The dam breaking wave was calculated. The comparison of numerical solution with exact solution indicates that KFVS method can well capture the di scontinuity of the shallow water wave equation.

Key words: kinetic flux vector splitting, shallow water wave equation, dam breaki ng wave