Harbour, Waterway and Coastal Engineering specialty was founded in 1952 by Yan Kai who was academician on both Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. It is a combination of related specialities of several famous universities in China. After all these years development, it becomes cradle of excellent talents. Great progresses have been made in modern harbour engineering, estuarine and coastal dynamics and sedimentation, coastal disaster prevention, waterway regulation, harbour and waterway engineering structures. In specialty teaching, we focus on linking theory with practice, integrating industry, education and research. The graduates have high comprehensive diathesis, and most of them become technological elites in research institutes and companies.

    The specialty was identified as one of the first brand subjects of Hohai University in 2002,  was approved as brand specialty of Jiangsu Province in 2005. It was approved as pilot unit of  characteristic specialty of Ministry of Education in 2007. Coastal Engineering became one of the first master and doctoral disciplines and the first subjects cultivating graduate students in 1981. Harbour and Waterway Engineering was elected as provincial key subject in 1994. Coastal Engineering was appraised as ministrial key subject by Ministry of Water Resources in 1996, and was listed as the key subject of the national "211 Project" in 1997. Harbour Coastal and Offshore Engineering was appraised as provincial key subject again in 2001, and was honored as national key subject in 2007.

    The specialty has Doctor and Engineering Master programs of Harbour, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Coastal Resources and Environment. More than 5000 full-time undergraduates have been cultivated. In recent three years, we enroll about 150-200 undergraduates every year. The major career choices are the harbour consultants companies of Ministry of Transportation, scientific research institutes, engineering construction and management companies, universities.

   We have a series of well-equipped laboratories such as harbour engineering laboratory, estuarine environment laboratory, Wave laboratory, harbour and waterway integrated teaching laboratory. The experiment facilities include wharf bearing condition testing system, waterway currents testing system, Pile Foundation testing system, Wave and structure interaction testing system, providing necessary conditions for undergraduates and graduate students cultivation. The major specialized courses Harbour Hydraulic Structure, Canalization Engineering, and Coastal Dynamics won the first class excellent courses of Jiangsu Province in 1998, 2000, 2002 respectively. Coastal Dynamics was appraised as National Excellent Course in 2007. Several textbook for national use have been edited, including China Coastal Engineering, Harbour Hydraulic StructureⅡ, Canalization Engineering, Waterway Engineering Ⅱ, Pile Foundation Engineering, Descriptive Geometry and Hydraulic Engineering Drawing, Coastal Dynamics, River Dynamics etc., among which China Coastal Engineering won the special prize excellent textbook from State Education Commission of the People's Republic of China in 1995, Canalization Engineering and Pile Foundation Engineering the won second prize excellent textbook from Ministry of Transportation. Besides, frequent academic communication has been developed with 15 universities and institutions in 11 countries and regions such as the MIT in the United States, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherland.