HEC-WAT has been created using the Java programming language. Software written in the Java language can run on almost any operating system. However, HEC-WAT has several native dependencies that require operating system specific code. In addition, HEC-WAT is capable of running several other software packages that may not be available for additional operating systems, in particular the HEC-RAS plugin for HEC-WAT only supports MIcrosoft Windows.
Microsoft Windows
We provide a HEC-WAT build for the Microsoft Windows operating system, tested on Windows 10 and Windows 11, although it may work on other versions of Windows. This testing has been performed on a standard "Science and Engineering" grade laptop and software configuration used by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Other organization's may have Windows system configurations that are not compatible with HEC-WAT or require changes to the HEC-WAT settings to work correctly. Please report any system configuration issues through the HEC-WAT bug report process. We recommend using the latest patches for the Windows operating system used to run HEC-WAT.
Linux
Upon request, we can provide a HEC-WAT build for Linux-based operating systems, but we cannot provide support and have not extensively tested this build. Several HEC applications that can be used within HEC-WAT have Linux versions and these can be used within HEC-WAT on Linux, but not all applications are available or tested. We have performed some limited testing on Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora Linux systems, but users are expected to perform their own validation and use extreme caution with these builds.