The hydrodynamical relevance of the Camassa-Holm and Degasperis-Procesi equations

In recent years two nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations have attracted a lot of attention due to their integrable structure. We prove that both equations arise in the modeling of the propagation of shallow water waves over a flat bed. The equations capture stronger nonlinear effects than the classical nonlinear dispersive Benjamin-Bona-Mahoney and Korteweg-de Vries equations. In particular, they accomodate wave breaking phenomena.