In this paper, we introduce a discontinuous Finite Element formulation on
simplicial unstructured meshes for the study of free surface flows based on the
fully nonlinear and weakly dispersive Green-Naghdi equations. Working with a
new class of asymptotically equivalent equations, which have a simplified
analytical structure, we consider a decoupling strategy: we approximate the
solutions of the classical shallow water equations supplemented with a source
term globally accounting for the non-hydrostatic effects and we show that this
source term can be computed through the resolution of scalar elliptic
second-order sub-problems. The assets of the proposed discrete formulation are:
(i) the handling of arbitrary unstructured simplicial meshes, (ii) an arbitrary
order of approximation in space, (iii) the exact preservation of the motionless
steady states, (iv) the preservation of the water height positivity, (v) a
simple way to enhance any numerical code based on the nonlinear shallow water
equations. The resulting numerical model is validated through several
benchmarks involving nonlinear wave transformations and run-up over complex
topographies