For ripple effect usually common way to do was create a mesh and modifier into a circle shape, so the uv maintain square, but you’ll need a lot increase a lot faces to achieve smooth looking.
That i try using shader to achieve similar technic , and the result was surprisingly good. Smooth face and no need mesh to achieve it.
I thought the most common technique was using polar coordiantes of the texture with shader, I would never thought creating mesh would be the no. 1 technique