The diffusive wave is valid when the inertial acceleration is much smaller than all other forms of acceleration, or in other words when there is primarily subcritical flow, with low Froude values. Models that use the diffusive wave assumption include MIKE SHE and LISFLOOD-FP. In the SIC (Irstea) software this options is also available, since the 2 inertia terms (or any of them) can be removed in option from the interface.