The composite modelling method is being actively developed in studies of loads and impacts on onshore hydraulic structures. The use of SWOT analysis for physical and numerical modeling allows to define more precisely the roles of these methods in hybrid studies. Examples of the application of the nested model method and the modeling the model method are shown, demonstrating both the advantages of these approaches and the existing problems. In particular, they are related to the role of reflected waves, which almost always arise in physical and numerical models. The reflected waves create a field of partially standing waves and, as a result, the difference between the wave height measured on the physical model and that obtained by numerical modeling depends on the location of the wave sensor. Part of the problem can be alleviated by using in the numerical modeling of the wave field not the wave height at a point, but the average wave height in the vicinity of the reference point.