This article is devoted to analyze some ambiguities coming from a class of sediment transport models. The models under consideration are governed by the coupling between the shallow-water and the Exner equations. Since the PDE system turns out to be an hyperbolic system in non conservative form, ambiguities may occur as soon as the solution contains shock waves. To enforce a unique definition of the discontinuous solutions, we adopt the path-theory introduced by Dal Maso, LeFLoch and Murat [18]. According to the path choices, we exhibit several shock definitions and we prove that a shock with a constant propagation speed and a given left state may connect an arbitrary right state. As a consequence, additional assumptions (coming from physical considerations or other arguments) must be chosen to enforce a unique definition. Moreover, we show that numerical ambiguities may still exist even when a path is chosen to select the system's solution.

This paper is concerned with the numerical approximation of Cauchy problems for one-dimensional nonconservative hyperbolic systems. The theory developed by Dal Maso et al. [J. Math. Pures Appl.74 (1995) 483–548] is used in order to define the weak solutions of the system: an interpretation of the nonconservative products as Borel measures is given, based on the choice of a family of paths drawn in the phase space. Even if the family of paths can be chosen arbitrarily, it is natural to require this family to satisfy some hypotheses concerning the relation of the paths with the integral curves of the characteristic fields. The first goal of this paper is to investigate the implications of three basic hypotheses of this nature. Next, we show that, when the family of paths satisfies these hypotheses, Godunov methods can be written in a natural form that generalizes their classical expression for systems of conservation laws. We also study the well-balance properties of these methods. Finally, we provethe consistency of the numerical scheme with the definition of weak solutions: we prove that, under hypothesis of bounded total variation, if the approximations provided by a Godunov method based on a family of paths converge uniformly to some function as the mesh is refined, then this function is a weak solution (related to that family of paths) of the nonconservative system. We extend this result to a family of numerical schemes based on approximate Riemann solvers.

This paper is concerned with the numerical approximations of Cauchy problems for one-dimensional nonconservative hyperbolic systems. The first goal is to introduce a general concept of well-balancing for numerical schemes solving this kind of systems. Once this concept stated, we investigate the well-balance properties of numerical schemes based on the generalized Roe linearizations introduced by [Toumi, J. Comp. Phys.102 (1992) 360–373]. Next, this general theory is applied to obtain well-balanced schemes for solving coupled systems of conservation laws with source terms. Finally, we focus on applications to shallow water systems: the numerical schemes obtained and their properties are compared, in the case of one layer flows, with those introduced by [Bermúdez and Vázquez-Cendón, Comput. Fluids23 (1994) 1049–1071]; in the case of two layer flows, they are compared with the numerical scheme presented by [Castro, Macías and Parés, ESAIM: M2AN35 (2001) 107–127].