I know of two excellent examples of this. One is an entertaining modern attempt to recreate economic models with a fluid computer: https://vimeo.com/131690448
It was built in the 1950s to study the effects of various plans, including one proposal to divert all incoming rivers to "productive" use. It was eventually made obsolete by computer simulation, but it's still there. I bring a lot of my nerdy out-of-town visitors there; it's amazing to walk around on a 2-acre simulation.
The other is the fucking fantastic Bay Model, a 1:1000 physical model of the San Francisco Bay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_B...
It was built in the 1950s to study the effects of various plans, including one proposal to divert all incoming rivers to "productive" use. It was eventually made obsolete by computer simulation, but it's still there. I bring a lot of my nerdy out-of-town visitors there; it's amazing to walk around on a 2-acre simulation.