Water Focus
Your professional home for environmental engineering in South Africa.
Promotes sustainable water management and river health through advocacy, education, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Other SAICE SEED Portfolios
Water is a thread tying together almost all aspects of Environmental Engineering, just about everything that Civil Engineers do in some way impacts on the water system. For example, the water focus community in SEED would be concerned with the quantity and quality of water in urban and natural rivers as well as the ecology and morphology of the rivers themselves. Out of concern for the impact that urban development has on our river systems we advocate for the implementation of Water Sensitive Urban Drainage Systems (WSUDS) as well as improvements in the quality of effluent from wastewater treatment works and solid waste management that results in the deterioration of water quality and the high garbage load carried by urban streams. We work in a cross disciplinary space with other professionals such as Landscape Architects and environmental specialists.
This portfolio is responsible for promoting the awareness of the environmental impact of engineering choices made in the water management field, by arranging talks, site visits or other means of communication.
Why is water such an important focus area in environmental engineering?
Water is central to environmental engineering because engineering decisions affect both the quantity and quality of water in rivers, wetlands, urban streams, and catchments. South African water policy and technical literature consistently treat water-resource protection as a core public responsibility, with the Department of Water and Sanitation noting that sustainable management requires degradation to be avoided, minimised, and remedied. SAICE has also highlighted that water-sensitive design is part of a broader shift in how urban environments are planned so that water sustainability and environmental protection are prioritised alongside development needs.
Why does the Water Focus portfolio advocate for Water Sensitive Urban Design Systems and better wastewater and solid waste management?
Because urban development can seriously damage river systems if stormwater, effluent, and waste are poorly managed. South African technical guidance on Water Sensitive Urban Design explains that WSUD is intended to support more sustainable urban water management and environmental protection, while SAICE has described it as a framework that helps align local planning and engineering practice with national water and climate goals. At the same time, the Department of Water and Sanitation has reported that many municipal wastewater systems are in critical condition, with substandard effluent contributing to river pollution, and it has also linked sewage spillages and illegal dumping to deteriorating water quality and high ecological stress in water bodies.
Why does this portfolio need to work across disciplines with landscape architects and environmental specialists?
Because protecting river health is not only an engineering issue; it also involves ecology, land use, rehabilitation, urban design, and landscape planning. SAICE’s WSUD coverage specifically describes a cross-disciplinary community of practice as necessary for managing complex urban water systems, and ILASA’s professional materials on stormwater management show that landscape architecture has a direct role in shaping sustainable stormwater and river-sensitive urban environments. For that reason, the Water Focus portfolio is well placed to promote awareness through talks, site visits, and technical engagements that bring engineers together with other specialists whose work influences river morphology, ecology, and urban water outcomes.