CE 374 K - Hydrology

Semester Project

Purpose

During the semester each student will work with a team on a project dealing with hydrology.  These projects will deal with some aspect of a real, complex hydrologic issue of current interest to the world, nation, State of Texas, Austin, or the UT campus community.  Students must work in teams.  Each group will make an oral presentation of their results to the class and deliver a final report to the instructor.

The purposes of the term project are:

1. To enable you to explore in-depth an aspect of the subject of hydrology.
2. To provide experience in the formulation, execution and presentation of an engineering investigation in the area of hydrology.
3. To produce and deliver a report (both oral and written) that will be informative to you and to your classmates.

Steps in Carrying out the Project

1. Students and the instructor will develop areas of interest for projects.  Areas of interest are drawn from the various areas of hydrology.
2. Students will sign up for an area of interest from the list provided by the instructor. 
3. From the expressed interests of the students, the instructor will prepare lists of team members for the various topical areas.
4. Teams will then select a specific project topic in their area and prepare a proposal to be submitted electronically by the date specified in the Course Assignment Web Page.
5. Teams will present an oral progress report in class on the date specified in the Course Assignment Web Page. The teams are expected to make some progress by mid-semester but the main effort on your project comes in the later part of the course once you've learned more about the methods in the course.
6. Teams will present their project to the class during one of the final class days of the semester and submit a written report in electronic form to the instructor by the last day of class.
7. The instructor will provide a score and comments on the reports and send them back to the students.  The project teams will then have an opportunity to revise and resubmit their reports electronically to the instructor by the time and date specified in the Course Assignment Web Page (approximately the scheduled final time for the course)

Project Proposals

Before beginning your project, you need to prepare a project proposal and submit it to the instructor for approval and feedback. This proposal should be one page in length.  The instructor will review the proposals and provide comments for the student to revise the proposal for final submittal and approval.  The proposal should contain:

• A minimum of 5 bibliographic citations relevant to your proposed project.
• Definition of the problem including relevant background.
• Discussion (preliminary) of the proposed methods of solution of the problem.
• Anticipated data needs.
• Anticipated problems in carrying out the project.
• Team members.
• Assignment of tasks to team members.

Project Presentations

Project presentations should be prepared in electronic form for presentation in class:

• Title

• Team

• Introduction and background to the problem

• Methods used to solve the problem including mathematical statement of important equations.

• Results including a physically reasonable example with interpretation of results,

• Conclusions,

Please refer to the Student Performance Standards for information on expectations for project presentations.

Final Reports

Project reports should be written as a technical report including:

• Title

• Team

• Abstract

• Introduction and background to the problem

• Methods used to solve the problem including mathematical statement of important equations and description of all parameters, coefficients and necessary data.  Data sources should be well documented and referenced.

• Results including a physically reasonable example with interpretation of results,

• Conclusions,

• References, and

• Appendices (as appropriate). 

The report (in word processor format) should be sent in electronic form to the instructor.

Reports should follow ASCE Journal requirements (http://www.pubs.asce.org/authors/index.html#manreq). 
In summary: Double spaced, 1 in. margins, 12 point font, no more than 10,000 words. 

McKinney | CE374K| Civil Engineering | UT Austin