Recent developments have extended the concept of global symmetries in several directions, offering new perspectives across a wide range of physical systems. This work shows that generalized global symmetries naturally emerge in shallow water systems. In particular, we demonstrate that two subsystem symmetries-previously studied primarily in exotic field theories-arise intrinsically in the dynamics of shallow water flows. A central result is that the local conservation of potential vorticity follows directly from the first subsystem symmetry, revealing that the classic Kelvin circulation theorem is rooted in these symmetries. Notably, the associated charge algebra forms a Kac-Moody current algebra, with the level determined by the spatial variation of the Coriolis parameter. Beyond the first subsystem symmetry, we also identify a second one, construct the corresponding Noether charges, and explore their potential applications.

8+2 pages, 2 columns. Published in Physics Letters B