Overview
Water plays a central role in irrigation, hydroelectric power production, water supply, navigation, flood control, erosion control, fisheries, drainage and land transport of pollutants. The utilization and management of water resources must be accomplished efficiently and economically, yet with assurance that there will be no detriment to the long-term potential of the resource itself or to the general well being and environmental quality of the surrounding region. Meeting these objectives requires great care in assessment, planning, design and management of water resources development. This, in turn, demands an understanding of many areas: the availability, distribution and quality of water, at rest and in motion, as it relates to the analysis and design of hydraulic components and structures; natural processes such as erosion, sedimentation, river mechanics, and coastal processes; and methods for planning and operating the resource system in an optimal way. Responsibility for these activities rests largely with civil engineers.
Professional Outlook
Graduate students select their main field of interest, and their individual programs are decided, in consultation with a faculty advisor. Since hydrotechnical engineering is such a broad field for graduate study, students may specialize in one aspect, such as hydrology, hydraulics, environmental fluid mechanics; or alternatively, students may choose a broad program such as water resources management, which would include elements of hydrology, hydraulics, systems engineering and pollution control engineering.
Key Areas
- Theoretical, numerical, laboratory and field investigations of the movement of nutrients and pollutants in lakes, inland and coastal waters;
- Flow instabilities, turbulence, and mixing in density stratified flows;
- Sediment transport in rivers and tailings ponds;
- Hydrologic modelling for flood control planning and management studies;
- River restoration;
- Urban hydrology;
- Application of optimization techniques and decision analysis to hydraulic design, the operation of multi-purpose reservoirs, lake water and river quality problems, fishery management and the design of water resource systems;
- Development of basin planning methods;
- Hydrologic data gathering network design;
- Wave damping and diffraction and wave induced loading of structures.
Media Highlights
- Provincial funding will advance UBC Disaster Resilience research
- Professor Michael Isaacson retires after 47 years from UBC Civil Engineering
- BC Natural Disaster Technical Briefing – Webcast Recording
- UBC Civil In The Media – Better forecasting could prevent disasters
Specialization Requirements
| MEng | MASc | PhD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elective courses (min. credits) | 29 | 17 | 29 |
| Seminar course | CIVL 597-102/202 | CIVL 597-102/202 | CIVL 597-102/202 |
| Thesis course | N/A | CIVL 599 | CIVL 699 |
Elective requirements
Electives may be taken from the list of Approved Electives below, or other electives may be taken with the approval of the Specialty Advisor / Supervisor.
Undergraduate students who are interested in Hydrotechnical Engineering are directed to the following courses:
- CIVL 415
- CIVL 416
- CIVL 417
- CIVL 418
Graduate Courses
| Approved Graduate Elective Courses | Name | Credits | Term |
| CIVL 518 | Reliability and Structural Safety | 3 | 1 |
| CIVL 523 | Project Management for Engineers | 3 | 2 |
| CIVL 524 | Legal Aspects of Project & Construction Management | 3 | 1 |
| 1CIVL 540 | Advanced Coastal Engineering | 3 | 2 |
| CIVL 541 | Environmental Fluid Mechanics | 3 | N/A2 |
| CIVL 542 | Physical Limnology | 3 | N/A |
| CIVL 543 | Turbulent Fluid Dynamics | 3 | N/A |
| CIVL 546 | Fluvial Hydraulics | 3 | N/A |
| CIVL 547 | Estuary Hydraulics | 2 | 2 |
| CIVL 555 | Opt. & Heuristic Approaches for Civil Eng Sys | 3 | 2 |
| CIVL 556 | Modeling & Optimization of Civil Engineering Systems | 3 | 1 |
| CIVL 558 | Water Resources Infrastructure | 2 | N/A |
| EOSC 511 | Num. Techniques for Ocean, Atmosphere & Earth Sci | 3 | 1 |
| EOSC 532 | Field Laboratory in Groundwater Hydrology | 3 | 2 |
| EOSC 533 | Advanced Groundwater Hydrology | 3 | 1 |
| SOIL 515 | Integrated Watershed Management | 3 | 1 |
| SOIL 516 | Urban Watershed Management | 3 | 1 |
| SOIL 518 | Water in International Development | 3 | 2 |
| Approved Undergraduate Electives | Name | Credits | Term |
| CIVL 415 | Water Resource Engineering | 3 | 2 |
| CIVL 416 | Environmental Hydraulics | 3 | 1 |
| CIVL 417 | Coastal Engineering | 3 | 2 |
| CIVL 418 | Engineering Hydrology | 3 | 1 |
| EOSC 329 | Groundwater Hydrology | 3 | 1 |
| EOSC 429 | Groundwater Contamination | 3 | 1 |
1Credit will only be granted for one of CIVL 417 / 540.
2N/A – not offered in 2020/21.
Questions?
To learn more about Hydrotechnical Engineering at UBC, please email gradsupport@civil.ubc.ca.
People
Facilities
We have two purpose-built laboratories for research in hydrotechnical engineering, including a 900 square metre modern hydraulics laboratory with a circulating capacity of 0.3 m3/s and eight pieces of apparatus, and a second graduate experimental space that houses two lasers and two other flumes. Learn more.