Global existence for the dirichlet problem for the viscous shallow water equations

A global existence and uniqueness theorem of strong solutions for the initial-boundary-value problem with Dirichlet boundary conditions is established for small forcing and small initial data. An exponential C-0 decay rate is also established and the solution is shown to be classical for t > 0. The positivity of the fluid height h for t greater than or equal to 0 is also proved. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.