780 Coastal Engineering Term Papers

The assigned term paper may be of two forms--a literature survey or original research.  In either case, the papers must be a minimum of 15 pages indicating your depth of knowledge about the subject. Please let me know by Oct 25 your topic and several paragraphs about what you expect to write.  

A research topic must present original research that you carry out during the rest of the semester.  The paper would then take the form of a laboratory report, but with lots of references to the state of the art.   

The term paper must be well-referenced; a full bibliography is expected (this means dozens of references if you are doing a literature review).  Any quoted materials must be in quotation marks and properly referenced.  If you don't know what plagiarism means, then you need to ask me; plagiarism will not be tolerated. 

Remember that there were many papers written before the advent of the internet.  Please include papers prior to 1994.

You will be expected to give a 20 minute (ONLY!) oral presentation on your paper at the end of the semester.  

Possible topics for literature reviews.  Feel free to suggest a topic of your own:  

Water waves and muddy coasts/bottoms.

Bedload sediment transport.

Coastal morphodynamics.

Sediment transport on gravel beaches.

Instability models of coupled nearshore hydrodynamics and sediment transport.

The influence of vertical seawalls on beaches. 

Depth of closure

Tidal inlet morphology

Migration of sand bars