Although students often specialize in one of these areas through a combination of the courses and their research, students are encouraged to take courses from several areas. In addition, some courses include elements from several areas but have been shown in only one. CE 397 is a special topics course that can be retaken for credit if topics differ.
For more information about each of these courses, please check the online syllabi.
Water and Wastewater Treatment
Katz , Kinney , Kirisits , Lawler , Liljestrand , Malina , Speitel
CE 385J - Hazardous Waste Management
Legal and technological approaches to control of hazardous wastes, studied through problem evaluation and solution. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, and Civil Engineering 342 or consent of instructor.
CE 385L - Water and Wastewater Treatment
Principles of treatment of domestic and industrial water, wastewater and sludges. Three lecture hours or two and one-halflecture hours and one laboratory hour a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
Topic 1: Physical and Chemical Treatment. Assitional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 342 or consent of instructor.
Topic 2: Biological Wastewater Treatment and Sludge Processing. Additional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 342 or consent of instructor.
Topic 3: Advanced Treatment Processes. Project-based course addressing advanced topics in treatment process design: alternative designs, computer models, laboratory testing, economics, and least-cost designs. Two and one-half lecture hours and one laboratory hour a week for one semester. Additional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 385L (Topic 1).
CE 385M - Unit Operations in Water and Wastewater Treatment
Physical, chemical and biological unit operations for water treatment and pollution control problems. One lecture hours and six laboratory hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, and Civil Engineering 385L (Topic 1: Physical and Chemical Treatment or Topic 2: Biological Wastewater Treatment and Sludge Processing) or consent of instructor.
CE 385N - Industrial Wastewater Treatment
Industrial wastewater characteristics; methods of in-plant control; application of various biological, chemical, and physical processes in practical water pollution control systems. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, and credit or registration for Civil Engineering 385L or consent of instructor.
CE 385R - Land Treatment of Wastes
Principles of the use of land in management of municipal and industrial wasterwaters, sludges, and solids; includes problem evaluations. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, and Civil Engineering 342 or consent of instructor.
CE 385W - Drinking Water: Treatment and Public Health Issues
Fundamentals and applications of drinking water treatment processes, interactions amoung treatment processes, source water quality, and public health issues. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, Civil Engineerin 385L (Topic 1: Physical and Chemical Treatment) and consent of instructor.
CE 386M - Design of Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Design
Design of water and wastewater treatment facilities; pumps and hydraulic considerations; design of wasterwater collection systems; design of systems for handling and disposal of residuals. Specific facilities may be selected to meet individual interests. Six hours of lecture and design laboratory a week for one semester, with appropriate field trips to operating facilities. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, and credit or registration for Civil Engineering 385L or consent of instructor.
CE 388N - Engineering and Management of Municipal and Industrial Residuals
Characterization and collection of solid wastes; biological, chemical and physical principles and integrated systems applicable to the treatment and disposal of municipal and industrial reduals. Two lecture hours and three discussion hours a week for one semester, with occasional field trips. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in civil or environmental engineering, or graduate standing and consent of instructor.
CE 393M - Environmental Engineering Research Seminar
Presentation and discussion of environmental topics in surface water, groundwater, air resources, and land resources. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.
CE 397 - Water Supply and Waste Disposal in Developing Countries
Unique considerations in engineering of water supply and waste disposal in undeveloped, rural areas. Public health issues and their impact on engineering.
Water Resources
Charbeneau , Hodges , Maidment , McKinney
Current research encompasses surface and ground water hydrology and wate resources planning and management. Applications include hydrologic modeling using geographic information systems; computer and statistical methods in water resources; spatial water balances; flood mapping; water resources sytems analysis; groundwater modeling and management; mulitphase flow; and optimization, uncertainty, and reliability analysis.
CE 380W - Water Resources Engineering Research Seminar
Presentations and discussions on various topics in water resources engineering. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.
CE 385D - Water Resources Planning and Management
Application of engineering economics, microeconomic theory, and operations research to the planning and management of water systems; major topics include flood control, hydroelectric power, water supply, multiobjective planning, and urban water resource management. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CE 394K - Engineering Hydrology
May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. With consent of instructor, any topic may be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Graduate standing; and a basic course in hydrology and in differential equations, or consent of instructor.
Topic 1 - Groundwater Pollution and Transport
Groundwater flow and hydroelectric modeling, sources of contamination, multiphase partitioning, advection-dispersion transport and modeling.
Topic 2 - Surface Water
Rainfall runoff processes, hydrograph theory, linear and nonlinear hydrologic system models, hydrologic and hydraulic streamflow routing, rainfall and flood flow frequency analysis, watershed models.
Topic 3 - Geographic Information Systems in Water Resources
Principles of geographic information systems, hydrology, and database management systems applied to water resources problems. Additional prerequisite: Consent of instructor.
CE 397 - Water Resources Development and Policies
Analysis of water resources projects, particularly international water projects, with emphasis on engineering planning considerations and their relation to governmental policies.
Environmental Fluid Mechanics, Hydraulics and Ocean Engineering
This area encompasses computational, laboratory, and field research relevant to basic and
applied fluid flow phenomena in the environment and oceans. Current projects include
laboratory studies of flow through highway culverts, computational studies of cavitation around
ship propellers and wave-body interactions, filed studies linked to modeling of transport
processes in lakes, and modeling of circulation in estuaries. The objectives of the research are
improving our understanding of the fundamentals of fluid-flow processes, development of
techniques for improved modeling, and application of laboratory, field and modeling studies to
the solution of engineering problems.
Charbeneau , Hodges , Kinnas
CE 380P. - Ocean Engineering Principles: Theory and Applications
May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing; and
Mathematics 427K and a course in fluid mechanics, or consent of instructor.
Topic 3: Principles of Hydrodynamics
Motion of a viscous or ideal fluid, waves and wave-body interactions, lifting surfaces, cavitating
flows, computational hydrodynamics
Topic 4: Boundary Element Methods
Formulation and numerical implementation of boundary element methods; applications to
problems in fluid mechanics, structural analysis, and solid mechanics.
CE 380S - Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Fundamentals of fluid mechanics applied in natural systems; analysis of energy; momentum,
diffusion, turbulence, and stratification in lakes, rivers, and estuaries. Prerequisite: Graduate
standing, and Civil Engineering 319F or consent of instructor.
CE380T - Computational Environmental Fluid Mechanics
Fundamentals of computational methods and their application to fluid mechanics problems in
civil and environmental engineering. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, Civil Engineering 380S
or an equivalent graduate course in fluid mechanics, and knowledge of a programming language.
CE 397 - Hydrodynamics of Propulsors and Dynamic Positioning Systems
Hydrofoil and lifting surface theory, actuator disk and lifting line theory, vortex-lattice and panel methods, blade design techniques, propulsor-inflow and propulsor-hull interaction, unsteady blade and shaft forces, and modeling of sheet cavitation.
CE 397 - Design of Offshore Structures
Selection of design storm; wave forces on structures; preliminary analysis of steel jacket platforms; joint design; fatigue considerations; foundation design; dynamic effects and responses.
Water Quality Management
Research on water quality management focuses on the processes and engineering systems
that control the quality, transport, and fate of surface and subsurface waters. Applications
include storm water quality management and control, estimation of receiving water total
maximum daily loads, assessment of effects of transport processeson water quality in lakes
and reservoirs, and characterization and modeling of chemical releases from contaminated
soils and their impact on remediation endpoints.
Charbeneau , Hodges , Maidment , Malina , McKinney , Reible
CE 385K. - Water Quality
Analysis of water quality in natural systems and of effects of wastewater discharges. May be
repeated for credit when the topics vary. prerequisite: Graduate standing.
Topic 1: Stream, Impoundment, and Estuarine Analysis I.
Basic physical, chemical, and biological properties of streams, impoundments, estuaries, and coastal waters; methods for analysis of water quality problems. Additional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 341 and one year of chemistry, or consent of instructor.
Topic 2: Stream Impoundment, and Estuarine Analysis II.
Application of methods of analysis to development of a water quality management plan for a water body in Texas. Additional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 385K (Topic 1) or consent of instructor.
Topic 3: Water Quality Modeling
Mathematical modeling of water quality, including dissolved oxygen, nutrients, and toxic substances in lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries. Additional prerequisite: Civil Engineering 385K (Topic 1) or consent of instructor.
Topic 4: Water Pollution Ecology
Advanced topics in the application of engineering solutions to ecological problems in freshwater and marine environments.
CE 390M - Water Quality Management
A consideration of the technical, scientific, legal, and socioeconomic aspects of water quality management. Prerequisite: graduate standing.
Environmental Engineering Science
To determine the fate and transport of pollutants, and understanding of the fundamental
chemical and biochemical reactions in required. Projects currently underway in this area include
sorption and speciation of metals in soil, interactions of organics with expansive soils,
complexation of heavy metals by bioploymers, and partitioning of endocrine disrupting
compounds into membrane systems.
Katz , Liljestrand , Reible , Speitel
CE 390J. - Engineering Microbiology
Fundamentals of microbiology and biochemistry as applied to environmental pollution and treatment processes, energetics and kinetics of microbial growth, and biological fate of pollutants; introduction to laboratory techniques. Three hours a week for one semester, including lecture and laboratory. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CE 390L - Environmental Analysis
Advanced analytical procedures for the sampling, monitoring, and analyses of wastes in air, liquids, and other wastes. Six hours of lecture and laboratory a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing, one year of chemistry, and consent of instructor.
CE 390N - Water Pollution Chemistry
Advanced topics in the application of engineering solutions to chemical problems in fresh water and marine environments. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CE 390P - Environmental Organic Chemistry
Advanced topics in the environmental chemistry of organic contaminants in groundwater, soil and air systems. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CE 397 - Particles in Water
The science and engineering of behavior of particles in water. Interactions of particles with the solution and other particles (double layer, hydrodynamics), and engineering processes for particle removal (flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, thickening, and membrane separation). (Lawler)
CE 397 - Surface and Soil Chemistry
An introduction to surface and soil chemistry as applied to environmental processes. Subjects include colloidal properties, liquid surfaces, liquid-liquid interfaces, solid-liquid interfaces, sorption, and soil components and their reactivity.
CE 397 - Chemical Dynamics in the Environment
Environmental chemodynamics: interphase equilibrium, reactions, transport processes and related models for anthropogenic substances across natural interfaces (air-water-sediment-soil) and associated boundary regions.
Air Resources
Research in the air resources field is an interdisciplinary effort that encompasses
atmospheric chemistry, ambient air quality monitoring and modeling, indoor air quality, and
air pollution control. Projects currently underway in this area include characterization and
control of hazardous air pollutants in both indoor and outdoor environments, acid deposition
modeling, ozone and fine particulate matter field studies, indoor air quality assessments in
school, indoor air chemistry, and vapor phase bioreactor development.
Allen , Corsi , Kinney , Liljestrand , McDonald-Buller , Novoselac , Siegel
Indoor Environmental Science and Enginering Program
CE 381E - Design of Energy Efficient and Healty Buildings
Design of buildings for low energy use and optimal indoor air quality. Includes ventilation,
energy efficiency, moisture problems, and prevention by design. Prerequisite: Graduate
standing in engineering or consent of instructor.
CE 389T - Indoor Air Quality: Transport and Control
Transport and control of indoor pollutants. Includes particulate removal and pollutant
transport into and within indoor environments. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in
architectural or civil engineering.
CE 396L. - Air Pollution Engineering
Sources, transport, fate, impacts, characteristics, and control of air contaminants; source control
and prevention; urban air quality; occupational and residential indoor air quality. May be repreated for credit when topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor.
Topic 1 - Air Pollution Chemistry
Classification, transport, transformation, deposition, sampling and analysis of particulate and gaseous air pollutants in urban, regional, and global - scale systems.
Topic 3 - Air Pollution Control
Design of air pollution control systems for stationary sources. Technical, regulatory, and economic fundamentals related to the control of gaseous and particulate emissions.
Topic 4 - Indoor Air Quality: Physics and Chemistry
Sources, transport, and fate of indoor air pollutants. Interactions between indoor pollutants and indooor materials. Indoor air chemistry. Human exposure to pollutants in indoor environments.
Topic 5 - Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion Modeling
Mathematical models of contaminant transport in the atmosphere; atmospheric turbulence and air pollution meteorology; Gaussian plume, gradient transport, and higher-order closure models; theoretical development and practical applications to engineering problems.
CE 396M - Advanced Topics in Atmospheric Science
May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in a natural science or engineering.
Topic 1: General Topics
Topic 2: Air Pollution Meterology
Basic meterology applied to air pollution; diffusion of conservative and nonconservative pollutants; plume rise; air pollution models.
CE 397 - Air Sampling and Analysis
Collection and analysis of air samples for gaseous and particulate contaminants. Gas flow rate and calibration techniques, stationary source sampling and analysis, indoor air sampling, ozone and NOX ambient air modeling.
Thesis and Project Courses
CE 397. Special Courses in Civil Engineering
For each semester hour of credit earned, the equivalent of one class hour a week for one semester; some topics require additional hours. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. With consent of instructor, any topic may be repeated for credit. Some topics may be offered on the credit/no credit basis only; these are identified in the Course Schedule. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of instructor. Additional prerequisites vary with the topic and are given in the Course Schedule. Specific courses in recent years have included:
CE 397S, 697S - Special Independent Studies in Civil Engineering
Independent study. May be repeated for credit. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and consent of adviser.
Topic 14: Master's Research
Topic 15: Dissertation Research
CE 398D - Department Report
Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the master's degree under the departmental report option. Individual instruction. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in civil engineering and consent of supervising professor and graduate adviser.
CE 398R - Master's Report
Preparation of a report to fulfill the requirement for the Master of Science in Engineering degree under the Graduate School report option. The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for one semester. Offered on a credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in civil engineering and consent of supervising professor and the graduate adviser.
CE 398T - Supervised Teaching in Civil Engineering
Special training in teaching methods and procedures for civil engineering courses, including laboratory courses; the development of new and material methods to update present courses. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in civil engineering and appointment made as teaching assistant.
CE 698 - Thesis
The equivalent of three lecture hours a week for two semesters. Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: For 698A, graduate standing in civil engineering and consent of the graduate adviser; for 698B, Civil Engineering 698A.
CE 399R, 699R, 999R - Dissertation
Offered on the credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Admission to candidacy for the doctoral degree.
CE 399W, 699W, 999W - Dissertation
Offered on a credit/no credit basis only. Prerequisite: Civil Engineering 399R, 699R, 999R.
Interdisciplinary Courses
CE 387C - Geoenvironmental Engineering
Waste containment systems; ground and groundwater remediation systems; multiphase flow and transport; soil-chemical interaction; nonaqueous-phase liquids; soil liners; geosynthetic materials. Three lecture hours and three laboratory hours a week for one semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing.
CE 387T - Decision, Risk, and Reliability
Principles and theory for modeling uncertainty in civil engineering, analyzing how uncertainties affect performance, and developing rational bases for design and decision making under uncertain conditions. Prerequisite: Graduate standing and an introductory course in probability and statistics.
