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SUPERIOR STRUCTURAL STEEL PRODUCTS

TH CONFERENCE OF THE

INSTITUTE OF MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

ISBN: 978-1-0483-5440-9

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

MANAGING EDITOR Alastair Currie Email: alastair@infraprojects.co.za DESIGNER Beren Bauermeister DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Asha Pursotham SUBSCRIPTIONS Email: distribution@infraprojects.co.za ___________________________________________________

Proceedings of the 89th Conference of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa

ADVERTISING SALES KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER Joanne Lawrie

CONFERENCE ENDORSED BY

Tel: +27 (0)82 346 5338 Email: joanne@infraprojects.co.za ___________________________________________________

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___________________________________________________ PUBLISHER IMESA (Pty) Ltd P O Box 2190, Westville, 3630 Tel: +27 (0)31 266 3263 Email: info@infraprojects.co.za ISSN 0257 1978 IMIESA, Inst.MUNIC. ENG. S. AFR. © Copyright 2026. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-0483-5440-9 ___________________________________________________ IMESA CONTACTS HEAD OFFICE: Manager: Ingrid Botton P.O. Box 2190, Westville, 3630 Tel: +27 (0)31 266 3263 Email: admin@imesa.org.za Website: www.imesa.org.za BORDER Secretary: Celeste Vosloo Tel: +27 (0)43 705 2433 Email: celestev@buffalocity.gov.za EASTERN CAPE Secretary: Susan Canestra Tel: +27 (0)41 585 4142 ext. 7 Email: imesaec@imesa.org.za KWAZULU-NATAL Secretary: Narisha Sogan Tel: +27 (0)31 266 3263 Email: imesakzn@imesa.org.za NORTHERN PROVINCES Secretary: Lethale Magagane Tel: +27 (0)72 059 7444 Email: np@imesa.org.za SOUTHERN CAPE KAROO Secretary: Henrietta Oliver Tel: +27 (0)79 390 7536 Email: imesasck@imesa.org.za WESTERN CAPE Secretary: Michelle Ackerman Tel: +27 (0)21 444 7112 Email: imesawc@imesa.org.za FREE STATE & NORTHERN CAPE Secretary: Wilma Van Der Walt Tel: +27 (0)83 457 4362 Email: imesafsnc@imesa.org.za All material herein IMESA Conference Proceedings 2026 is copyright protected and may not be reproduced without the prior written permission of the publisher. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa or the publishers.

FLEXIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR WATER TANK STORAGE Structa Technology’s Prestank is a leader in steel innovation

IMESA Overview

IMESA President’s Welcome Message

2026 President's Address

LOC Chair Address

Housekeeping Notes

Conference Programme

SPONSORS - uMngeni-uThukela Water

- BigeTron

- LiBER GRIDS

- Magalies Water

- BLOC Contractors

- Kabe Consulting Engineers

- Makhaotse, Narasimulu & Associates (MNA)

- MPAMOT

- Saint-Gobian Africa

- Solfab

- Zutari

- IMIESA Publications

Exhibition Floorplan

Exhibitor Profiles

Speaker Profiles

Abstracts

Index to Papers

COVER STORY

FLEXIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR WATER TANK STORAGE

STRUCTA TECHNOLOGY’S PRESTANK IS A LEADER IN STEEL INNOVATION Structa Technology’s manufacturing centre based in Meyerton, Gauteng

in elevated or ground level format. Examples include the development of L-shaped tanks to fit around building footprints,” says Hercules Rossouw, Managing Director of Structa Technology. One of the largest Prestank units designed and built to date was a 4.2 Mℓ firefighting tank installed at Eskom’s Medupi power station in 2014. This has subsequently been followed by a 5 Mℓ installation for an industrial client in KwaZulu-Natal.

Strong gains in the municipal market

Celebrating a major milestone, 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Structa Technology’s Prestank – a proprietary pressed steel sectional water storage tank range that has seen extensive application across South Africa.

owever, the Prestank’s lineage dates back much further to the early 1980s when these tanks were first produced by Dorbyl Structural Products. The latter was subsequently acquired by the Structa Group around 2002 following its merger with engineering consulting firm, Structacom. In 2014 Structacom was rebranded as Structa Konsult and today provides design, analysis and testing services within the Group, as well as for the general market. A Level 1 B-BBEE entity, the Structa Group specialises in the fabrication of structural steel products and related services for the electrification, telecommunications, municipal, mining, construction and industrial sectors. These services are backed by ISO 9001:2015 accreditation and compliance with all applicable SANS standards. Within the Group, Structa Technology is home to a strategic manufacturing centre based in Meyerton, Gauteng, equipped with the latest steel fabrication technologies within a 36 000 m2 industrial footprint that incorporates an undercover workshop area of 10 000 m², plus an open stacking area of 25 000 m2. The production focus is on turnkey execution, from design and manufacturing through to project management, transport and site erection.

Water storage segment Structa’s Meyerton facility is also the manufacturing centre for the Prestank water storage line, as well

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as allied structural steel components for this series, such as tank stands. Designed to meet a full spectrum of storage needs, Prestank models range in size from around 1 500 litres up to 5 Mℓ or higher and are designed in accordance with SANS 10329:2004 guidelines. In turn, the steel truss stands on which elevated tanks are mounted are fabricated strictly in accordance with SANS 10160 for wind, deadloads and dynamic loads, and SANS 10162 for structural steel work requirements. All steel tank sections are hot dip galvanised for corrosion resistance in accordance with SANS 121 (ISO 1461), with the applied coating thickness within a range of 80 to 100 µm. This typically ensures a lifespan of at least 50 years with minimal routine maintenance. Where refurbishment is needed, this service is provided by Structa Technology for its own tanks, as well as for other non-Group installations.

Design and quality assurance To perfect its designs, Structa’s engineering team employ finite element structural analysis to optimise plate design and positioning of internal bracing, and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis to optimise wind resistance. Then as part of the final design quality control protocol, laboratory testing, as well as full-scale testing, confirms ultimate leakfree structural integrity. “Our Prestank units are square by design, but that still provides a degree of customisation, whether

Alongside the commercial, industrial and mining segments, the municipal sector remains a core market for the Prestank, with Structa Technology having fielded thousands of units over the years for bulk potable water storage. These extend across the full spectrum from mega infrastructure developments to community-level projects. Sometimes the requirement is for a temporary installation, but the main need is a permanent solution. Key municipal orders in the past 12 months include larger-scale 100 000 to 150 000 litre Prestank units (alongside the more mainstream 20 000, 30 000 and 50 000 litre tanks popular in general industry), installed on 10 m to 15 m high stands. In parallel is a growing demand for larger ground level tanks of 2 to 3 Mℓ. These are typically holding “command reservoir-type” tanks connected via pipelines to smaller elevated tanks within a community supply network. “As part of our turnkey approach, and depending on the complexity of the project, we work closely with the client and their engineering team to optimise the tank design, including the verification of the foundation loads,” adds Rossouw. “Within Structa Konsult we can also provide a foundation design service if required.” Compared to the complexities of constructing reinforced concrete reservoirs, key advantages of the Prestank include its speed of fabrication and installation, as the tank arrives on site in a sectional kit format for assembly by trained installers. To underscore the point, Structa Technology’s current production capability enables the fabrication of an up to 5 Mℓ storage tank within a four-month period, from manufacturing to commissioning, which factors in the earlier

COVER STORY

Structa Technology’s Acme 20 kW beam and tube laser has a 15 m input and output bed and is the first of its kind in South Africa Structa Technology’s Yangli 14 m tandem press brake is set-up to process bends of up to 14 m, with a plate thickness of 3 mm to 16 mm and plate width of 1.825 m

completion of the civil foundation works ahead of the installation programme.

Machinery investments “To the best of our knowledge, we are the oldest manufacturer of steel tanks in South Africa,” says Rossouw. “This market leadership has been driven by an unrelenting pursuit of excellence and quality, with major investments in cutting-edge machinery and software that place the Group at the forefront in terms of its product lines. Across the board, our focus is on automating processes that ensure precision execution with unprecedented efficiency.” In terms of machinery, recent upgrades include the acquisition of a Yangli 14 m tandem press brake; the installation of a second Hugong HGLB 6015 fully enclosed industrial fiber laser cutting machine; and a new Yangli 1 000 tonne four column hydraulic press.

“With the Yangli 14 m tandem press brake, we can now process bends of up to 14 m, with a plate thickness of 3 mm to 16 mm and plate width of 1.825 m. This is a capability few other manufacturers in South Africa possess,” Rossouw explains. The new Yangli 1 000 tonne four column hydraulic press joins an existing 1 300 tonne SMG hydraulic press, both used for the processing of the sheet metal employed to form the Prestank sections. For its water storage lines, Structa also employs specialist 6 kW laser cutting machines for fabrication of the tank plates. “Like our other machine acquisitions, the new Yangli 1 000 tonne unit will significantly improve our tank production throughput. Plus, it will serve as a backup to the 1 300 tonne machine during scheduled downtime for maintenance,” Rossouw continues. The new Yangli 1 000 tonne press – which is due to arrive from China shortly – measures some

Four 3 Mℓ interconnected Prestank units commissioned to provide large-scale bulk water storage

10 m in height, with the initial 3 m section founded below ground level, which provides an indication of its scale. Structa Group has also installed an Acme 20 kW beam and tube laser with a 15 m input bed and a 15 m output bed. “Normally the standard is 13 m either side, so this gives us an advantage, plus it’s the first of its kind in South Africa,” says Rossouw. The Acme is used to manufacture a diverse range of products, including the structural steel towers that support Structa’s elevated Prestanks.

Investing in the future What these investments illustrate is Structa’s commitment to world-class South African engineering and manufacturing as a committed OEM partner for municipal and industrial infrastructure delivery. “Within the mix, there’s never been a greater demand for bulk potable water storage as South Africa’s trend towards intensified urbanisation places increasing strain on existing infrastructure. In parallel is the need to support and sustain rural centres with scalable tank solutions, alongside general industry, whether it be farming or mining,” Rossouw adds. “In the cost constrained municipal arena, the Prestank has proven itself for close to five decades. It’s an ideal solution to bridge infrastructure gaps and enhance water security within an increasingly unpredictable climate change environment,” Rossouw concludes.

g r o u p www.structatech.co.za

IMESA

IMESA MISSION STATEMENT To promote excellence in the engineering profession for the benefit of municipalities and their communities.

OVERVIEW Since 1961, The Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA) has been committed to the pursuit of excellence in all facets of infrastructure, pushing boundaries and driving innovation. Our unwavering dedication extends to the professionals who form the backbone of this industry. IMESA creates a platform for the exchange of ideas and viewpoints on all aspects of municipal engineering with the aim of expanding the knowledge and best practices in all local government municipalities. This is made up of a community of pioneers, professionals, and enthusiasts united by a singular purpose: to reshape the landscape of infrastructure engineering. Municipalities are key role-players in identifying needs, prioritising funding, and implementing integrated development planning for community-based programmes.

CPD ACCREDITED SEMINARS Branches organise regular full- and half-day seminars/training sessions, which often include site visits and technical product updates and are accredited with ECSA for CPD points. These events provide opportunities for members to network and share knowledge on all aspects of municipal engineering throughout the year.

ANNUAL CONFERENCES IMESA conferences are hosted by a different branch each year for everyone involved in infrastructure engineering to gain valuable information and insight into issues that relate to municipalities as well as local and national government agencies. The papers presented are always relevant and topical, and exhibitors are on-site to showcase their products and services. The conference is ECSA CPD accredited.

BURSARY SCHEME Bursaries are awarded each year to selected students who are studying for a qualification in a field that falls under infrastructure engineering at any ECSA accredited tertiary educational institution in South Africa and have successfully completed 1st year studies. The aim of the scheme is to recognise achievements of students who would not otherwise be able to continue studying or who are dependents of IMESA members.

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IMESA collaborates with experts in the field and industry partners like the Water Research Council to develop guidelines and training for all aspects of infrastructure asset management to address capacity building priorities in the engineering and municipal environments. The information is disseminated via workshops and presentations that are rolled out nationally.

IMESA WEBSITE The Institute advises Councils on municipal engineering matters and serves the broader community through representation on a number of national bodies, where it provides input from the municipal engineer’s perspective. As a member of the International Federation of Municipal Engineering (IFME), IMESA contributes to and gains a wealth of global experience in the infrastructure engineering field. Partnering with both local and international organizations IMESA not only to raises awareness but redefines perceptions, strengthening our image and reputation among diverse audiences. Strategic partnerships with government bodies, academic institutions, research entities are pivotal in the quest to benefit the institute, its members, and the entire engineering profession. Together, we can navigate a course towards a brighter, more innovative future for infrastructure engineering.

BENEFITS AND SERVICES TO MEMBERS IMIESA JOURNAL Members of IMESA are granted free subscription to the IMIESA journal, a highly informative monthly publication that serves as a mouthpiece for the engineering fraternity by disseminating cutting-edge technical news and developments. The journal has received the prestigious PICA Award for the best publication of its kind in the Urban Management, Civil Construction and Infrastructural Development categories.

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Visit: www.imesa.org.za for information about IMESA, its management structure, its branches and all its activities in support of members and potential members.

IMESA HERALDRY AND MOTTO The IMESA coat of arms was designed by Alan Woodrow and was registered with the South African Bureau of Heraldry in 1972.

Monumenta Circumspice means “For our monuments, look around you”

IMESA

IMESA STRUCTURE

IMESA STRUCTURE PRESIDENT DEPUTY PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENT TECHNICAL

VICE PRESIDENT OPERATIONS

TECHNICAL DIRECTORS

OPERATIONS DIRECTORS

– Director: Infrastructure

– Director: Constitution, By-Laws & Ethics

– Director: Environment

– Director: Head Office Support

– Director: Training & Skills

– Director: Finance – Director: Conferences

Development

– Director: Marketing & Communications

– Director: Asset & Business

– Director: IMESA PTY

Management

– Director: Young Professionals Portfolio

ADMINISTRATION MEMBER

IMESA MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES/ GRADES CORPORATE MEMBERS

- Candidate Engineer - Candidate Engineering Technologist - Candidate Engineering Technician - Candidate Certified Engineer • Are admitted as such by the Executive Committee • Have been admitted by Council on the unanimous recommendation of the Executive Committee based on their opinion that such persons have the experience, employment responsibility or involvement in infrastructure engineering or have made a contribution to public sector engineering that, in the interests of the Institute, justifies such admission.

STUDENT MEMBERS They shall be persons who are: • Enrolled students at a local or international university/technical university recognised by ECSA • Studying towards a degree/diploma in engineering • Admitted as such by the Executive Committee.

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS They shall be persons who: • Have satisfied the Executive Committee that they are involved in an aspect of infrastructure engineering • Are admitted as such by the Executive Committee.

AFFILIATE MEMBERS They shall be those academic, research, consulting, commercial, industrial or other undertakings who: • Are in the opinion of the Executive Committee, involved in business related to infrastructure engineering • Are admitted as such by the Executive Committee.

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERS They shall be persons who: • Are registered by ECSA or an equivalent engineering council recognised by ECSA as full professionals in at least one of the following categories: - Professional Engineer - Professional Engineering Technologist - Professional Engineering Technician - Professional Certified Engineer - Registered Engineering Technician • Have at least three years infrastructure engineering experience after achieving a qualification recognised by ECSA or an equivalent engineering council recognised by ECSA for registration • Have been admitted as such by the Executive Committee • Having failed to comply with the requirements of the clauses above, have been admitted by Council, on the unanimous recommendation of the Executive Committee based on their opinion that such persons have the experience, employment responsibility or involvement in infrastructure engineering or made such a contribution to infrastructure engineering that, in the interests of the Institute, justifies such admission.

NON-CORPORATE MEMBERS GRADUATE MEMBERS They shall be persons who: • Are registered/eligible for registration by ECSA or an equivalent engineering council recognised by ECSA in at least one of the following categories:

IMESA MEMBERSHIP FEES: 1 JULY 2026 TO 30 JUNE 2027 INDIVIDUALS: Entrance Fee (all individual categories) Once-off on approval of application

R440

Annual Subscription Fees Professional member

R1 700

Retired Professional member

R510

Fellow member

R1 700

Retired Fellow member

R510

Graduate member

R760

Retired Graduate member

R450

Associate member

R1020

Retired Associate member

R450

Student member

R450

COMPANIES: Category

Entrance Fee

Annual Subscription

Affiliate Member Platinum

R6 320

R20 220

Affiliate Member Gold

R4 900

R13 360

Affiliate Member Silver

R3 000

R8 940

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Background information for Affiliate Membership DEFINITION OF AFFILIATE MEMBERSHIP Affiliates shall be those consulting, commercial or industrial undertakings that have been admitted as such by the Executive Committee. Any consulting, commercial or industrial undertaking may be admitted as an Affiliate, provided, in the opinion of the Executive Committee, it is involved in business related to municipal engineering.

MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES This type of membership offers 4 categories: • Platinum: Recommended for larger corporates operating countrywide with and/or ties abroad (20+ offices or outlet points). • Gold: Recommended for medium-sized corporates operating in the major regional centres (10-20 offices or outlet points). • Silver: Recommended for smaller corporates operating locally (<10 offices or outlet points). • Professional: Reciprocal complimentary membership for synergy between associated organisations. An Affiliate Member may request a change to its membership category once a year, when the renewal of its annual subscription becomes payable.

BENEFITS OF AFFILIATE MEMBERSHIP IMIESA magazine Official journal is published monthly. This prestigious technical journal has won a number of awards, including SAPPI-PICA and other Mondi awards, since its launch in 1975. It also has a strong online presence through websites and social media pages. Citings and editorial A citing is compiled by IMIESA's editorial staff, and is valued at least twice that of a paid advertorial of the same size. The following is offered to Affiliates: Note: Company logos are omitted in editorial/citings, as it will lead to losing its value MEMBER CATEGORY

EXPOSURE

Platinum

3 citings per annum

Gold

2 citings per annum

Silver

1 citing per annum

Professional

1 citing per annum

as an editorial/citing. In order to retain editorial integrity, Affiliates will be entitled to expect exposure on this basis, which provides "clean exposure" in that it is not paid for. New appointments, contracts or important projects will receive attention.

Discount on advertising All Affiliate Members will automatically receive Most Valued Client status, meaning that advertisement positions are prioritised. In addition to this, IMIESA offers a discount on all advertisements on submission of publishable technical material by Affiliate Members. The discount is also applicable to other advertorial products such as inserts and inside cover positions of the journal.

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Free copies Affiliate members will receive free copies of the IMIESA journal:

Platinum

Max 15

Gold

Max 10

Silver

Max 5

Professional

Max 5

Affiliate showcase This is a dedicated full page in each issue of IMIESA journal identifying Affiliate Members. Their logos are presented in colour and company names are listed.

ANNUAL CONFERENCES Sponsorship at conference “First refusal right” towards sponsorship at the annual IMESA Conference. The conference organising committee/professional organisers will contact all Affiliates in advance, prior to seeking sponsorships from the rest of the industry. Exhibition stand cost at the annual IMESA Conference The following discounts are afforded on the cost of exhibition stands at the conference:

Platinum

Gold

7.5%

Silver

Professional

Conference registration fees Delegates representing Affiliate Member Companies can register at the Member rate for the IMESA Conference.

IMESA WEBSITE IMESA’s website is one of the main communication mediums. IMESA Affiliates can receive exposure with their logos displayed on the Affiliate Membership sub-site and a link to their website. Additional advertising benefits are being explored.

CERTIFICATE Affiliate Members will be supplied with a framed certificate from IMESA for their head office, reflecting their Affiliate Membership status. Additional certificates may be requested for other offices of the Affiliate Member.

ATTENDANCE AT IMESA BRANCH PROCEEDINGS An IMESA Affiliate may send attendees to branch meetings and similar proceedings. Affiliates will be included on the contact lists of IMESA branches countrywide.

CONTACT DETAILS: IMESA HEAD OFFICE Street address: Unit 3 The Summit, 2 Derby Place, Westville, 3629, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Postal address: PO Box 2190, Westville, 3630, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Contact numbers: t +27 (0)31 266 3263/266 0943

09 President’s Welcome Message 10 2026 President’s Address 13 LOC Chair Address 14 Local Organising Committee (LOC)

90 IMESA TH

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IMESA ORGANISER

THE INSTITUTE OF MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (IMESA)

WELCOME

President’s Welcome Message

his is our 89th Conference and it is a pleasure for me that it is being hosted in my home city of Durban. The eThekwini metropolitan area has so much to offer which I hope all our visitors will make the most of while they are here. The 2026 IMESA Conference will continue our proud tradition of providing all the services and opportunities that our delegates, exhibitors, sponsors and various stakeholders expect. We look forward to having representatives from national, regional and local authorities networking with each other, with our exhibitors and sponsors and with our delegates. There is a wide range of products and innovative solutions being showcased. I am sure everyone will gain valuable knowledge and benefit from expanding their network of contacts within the municipal infrastructure engineering field of expertise.

The conference theme this year is “Blueprints Reimagined Judiciously” which reflects a deliberate and informed rethinking of infrastructure development, balancing innovation with responsibility and progress with sound engineering judgement. We recognize the ongoing challenge for all municipalities to find new and sustainable ways to manage and maintain their infrastructure to meet the ever-growing demands for service delivery. It is a challenge that requires all our shared experience, ingenuity and resourcefulness to achieve success. The KwaZulu-Natal Branch LOC members and head office staff are to be commended for organizing an excellent conference program with papers covering a broad range of topical and very relevant aspects of municipal infrastructure engineering. The panel discussion promises to stir up interesting debates and our plenary presentations on Thursday afternoon, as an alternative to the technical tours, will focus on specific projects which highlight the conference theme. Our new IMESA President for the 2026-2028 term will be inaugurated at the opening function and I will be handing over the chain of office to a very capable and worthy recipient. I look forward to supporting Mr Vuyani Gxagxama as he takes IMESA forward for the next two years. I invite you to participate in all that is on offer and to take full advantage of your time at our 2026 IMESA conference.

Geoff

Geoff Tooley, Pr Eng Hon FIMESA, IMESA President: 2024-2026

IMESA

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

2026 President’s Address

ith my two-year term as IMESA President coming to an end, I look back on what has been achieved during my term. In some ways, the time has passed far too quickly but in others it is frustrating that it has taken so long for some projects to get off the ground. It has been encouraging to see the Free State/Northern Cape Branch become established and active in the hands of Chair, Ms Mpho Plaatjie, and Treasurer, Mr Ronnie Chauke. It is growing and we are proud to see it become an integral part of IMESA. I and my fellow office bearers have continued to represent IMESA at various forums and had the opportunity to interact with high level stakeholders on the crucial issues that continue to challenge all our local municipalities. IMESA has played an important role in submitting comment and highlighting issues that need to be addressed in the White Paper for Local Municipalities. We have also provided input on other legislation that impacts on our members and municipal engineering.

IMESA Projects and Strategic Liaisons CBE / CIDB Stakeholder Forums IMESA is currently engaged in submitting comment on the review of the proposed CBE Act which has raised concerns amongst various professional bodies as to its intent and functionality.

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Civil Engineers South Africa (CESA) IMESA continues engage with CESA and will present the joint Excellence Awards at next year’s annual IMESA Conference in Johannesburg. Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) IMESA, as a Voluntary Association, has been called on to support the ECSA submission regarding the review of the CBE Act. As a registered ECSA Licence Body and Verified Service Provider, IMESA continues to accredit CPD Activities and provide opportunities for our members to accrue the CPD points. National Treasury IMESA technical directors continue to monitor amendments to regulations and legislation and to provide input where relevant. An example this year was the General Public Procurement Regulations. Our work with COGTA and University of KwaZulu-Natal to establish disaster management approaches for local government continued this year. Input from the research was shared with the International Federation of Municipal Engineering (IFME) who have published a guideline that is now available on our website.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

I have been involved in the establishment of a National Urban Catchment and Riverine Management platform. The first meeting/workshop occurred on 23 July 2026 at the WISA Biennial Conference in Cape Town through the support of GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit-German Development Cooperation). Good work has been done in proving the benefits of catchment and river management in a number of municipalities. This now needs to be shared and replicated nationally. To achieve this, the national platform needs to offer. • a genuine community of practice that connects municipal practitioners, allowing them to share, learn and avoid reinventing the wheel. • A single collective voice capable of driving advocacy and structural reform at a systemic level. • The ability to set a shared research agenda that reflects the actual needs of practitioners. • Coordinated approaches across institutional boundaries where catchments are shared. • A lasting institutional home, with WISA and IMESA identified as potential hosts. International Federation of Municipal Engineers (IFME) It was my privilege to attend the IFME Board Meeting and conference held in Helsinki, Finland in June this year, which was another opportunity to learn from our European and international counterparts. This event coincided with the 100th anniversary of the Finnish Association of Municipal Engineering confirming that the work on municipal engineering requires long term efforts from one generation to another and has a key role in the functioning of society. Another speech highlighted that by 2050 nearly 70% of the world's population is expected to live in cities, which makes urbanization one of the defining global trends of our time. The impacts of climate change and increasing extreme weather events were also highlighted. IMESA, representing South Africa, submitted two projects for the IFME Excellence Awards and we are proud to announce that the Tecroveer submission in the Construction Project category won the Gold Award. This project showed innovation and resourcefulness in finding a way to construct a water treatment plant as quickly as possible for an emergency situation. The Calabash modular water treatment package was constructed and achieved the first 12.5 MLD of potable water in just 10 months.

As part of their goal to provide technical reference documents to their global members, IFME has compiled a Disaster Recovery Management Guidebook with input from several of its member countries, including South Africa. This is available on our website in the Document Library under the Skills Development menu. South African Local Government Association (SALGA) It is appreciated that SALGA continues to endorse the IMESA conference. We have called on SALGA also to support our strategic priority to compile a needs and numbers analysis, previously provided by Allyson Lawless at SAICE. A meeting was set up with Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority (LGSETA) for assistance with obtaining information to support data from other sources for accurate and comprehensive research that is needed for the data analysis. Water Research Commission (WRC) The five-year memorandum of agreement between IMESA and WRC is now in its third year of rolling out workshops on water related capacity building requirements. The commitments continue to be met successfully and IMESA is being called on to participate in additional activities with other WRC stakeholders.

Membership and Branches Thanks to our Branch Chairs and their committees, the energy and enthusiasm in all our branches is attracting good attendance of both members and non-members at all the local events, which this year included Woman’s Day events held in Cape Town and Durban as well as Golf Days, site visits and special seminars in addition to the quarterly branch meetings. IMESA has branches covering the following regions: • Northern Provinces (Gauteng) • Free State/Northern Cape (Bloemfontein/Kimberley) • KwaZulu-Natal (Durban) • Border (East London) • Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth) • Southern Cape/Karoo (George/Mossel Bay) • Western Cape (Cape Town) • Southern Africa (covering SADC countries)

EXCO and Council The 4 office bearers and 11 directors, with their assigned operational and technical portfolios who make up our Executive Committee, continue to manage and support the institute’s strategic priorities and head office, while our Council representatives continue to drive all IMESA operations and ensure that the institute meets its objectives.

Finances and Investments Thanks to careful management of income and expenditure from membership, conferences and institute activities nationally, the institute finances and investments are in a strong position.

IMIESA Publication The dedicated team of Alastair Currie, Joanne Lawrie and Asha Pursotham supported by additional resources continue to ensure that our magazine maintains high standards as the official business-to-business communication platform for the Institute and all its members. Newsletters

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PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

and additional facilities for communication between all infrastructure stakeholders have been expanded and we look forward to offering members more opportunities to earn CPD in the coming year. Our PR Agency is gaining traction with getting IMESA into mainstream media. In the last six months, IMESA media releases have featured in newspapers and online news forums nationally, giving the Institute a voice on behalf of all municipal engineers.

Obituary IMESA received the sad news that Prof. Romano Del Mistro passed away suddenly in June 2026. He joined IMESA in January 1985 and was an active member throughout, firstly with Western Cape Branch while he was at University of Cape Town, where he contributed many publications on municipal engineering topics, and then with our Southern Cape/ Karoo Branch. He and other members will be commemorated at our AGM on Tuesday, 10 November 2026.

In Summary: These last 2 years have flown by. Every month Alastair would phone me for my President’s comment for the magazine, and it felt like the previous month’s comment had just been done. In any position there are positives and negatives but for me there have been very few negatives during my term. This has been due to the amazing team that supported me throughout.

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My EXCO and Council members have engaged in some robust debate on issues key to our industry. They have shown commitment to the task and have always been willing to step in for meetings and provide comments to what were often very last-minute requests on issues such as the CBE act and the LGWP. For this I am extremely grateful. The head office staff have maintained their usual brilliance in administering the various activities of IMESA and I am thankful for the solution-oriented support that they have provided me. Thank you also to the members of IMESA from around the country, who have always welcomed me with warmth and respect for various interactions during this time. Regarding this 2026 IMESA Conference, I wish to thank the LOC, presenters, delegates, the sponsors and the exhibitors for the support you have shown to IMESA, all of which helps in the success of this conference. It gives me great pleasure to hand over the IMESA Presidential baton (or chain) for the 2026-2028 term to Mr Vuyani Gxagxama whom I hope to support in my role as Deputy President as well as he has supported me in his role as Vice-President: Technical. I want to thank Lesley, my wife, for the loving support and for keeping the home fires burning during my trips away in these last two years. Finally, I wish to thank God for the life and experiences that I have been blessed with.

LOC WELCOME

LOC Chairperson Address

n behalf of the Local Organising Committee and the IMESA KwaZulu-Natal Branch, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 89 th Annual IMESA Conference and Exhibition in Durban. There is something fitting about bringing the IMESA community to eThekwini. Our city takes its name from the bay at its heart, where the uMngeni meets the Indian Ocean and one of Africa’s busiest ports connects our city to the world. Along the Golden Mile, the coastline has become synonymous with Durban, while the iconic arch of Moses Mabhida Stadium rises above the city as a reminder of what engineering, vision and ambition can create. But the story of Durban is not only found in its landmarks. It is also found in the infrastructure that allows a complex, growing city to function every day — the water that reaches our communities, the roads and bridges that connect people and places, and the networks that support industry, commerce and opportunity. As engineers, much of our work happens quietly. We plan, design, maintain, rehabilitate and manage infrastructure that can easily be taken for granted when it works well. Yet behind every successful system are decisions about risk, affordability, resilience, sustainability and, ultimately, the communities we serve. This is where this year’s theme, “Blueprints Reimagined Judiciously,” resonates. Cities are never finished. Every generation inherits infrastructure shaped by the decisions of those before us, while facing challenges that previous generations could

not have anticipated. We must be prepared to look again at the blueprints we inherit – to question, adapt and innovate where necessary, while respecting the knowledge and experience embedded in what has come before. For eThekwini, this responsibility is particularly significant as the City works towards its vision of becoming Africa’s most caring and liveable city by 2030. That ambition will not be defined by a single project or landmark, but by the thousands of decisions that collectively shape how people experience their city every day. IMESA gives us an opportunity to have these conversations – to share knowledge, challenge our thinking, learn from one another and consider how we can shape better outcomes for the communities we serve. I would like to sincerely thank our dedicated Local Organising Committee, the IMESA Head Office team, our sponsors, exhibitors, speakers and everyone who has contributed to bringing this conference to Durban. We hope you will engage fully with the technical programme, build meaningful connections and experience the unique energy of our city. Welcome to Durban. Welcome to IMESA 2026. Let us reimagine the blueprints of our cities – judiciously, purposefully and with the generations who come after us in mind.

Roxanne Canny LOC Chair | IMESA KZN Branch

IMESA

LOC

Local Organising Committee (LOC)

Roxanne Canny LOC Chair

Randeer Kasserchun Vice Chair

Bhavna Soni Finance

Narisha Sogan Secretary

Geoff Tooley TAC

Sibusiso Mjwara

Ashan Nandlal

Dave Baytopp

Dave Wilson

Andrew Mather

Dhiveshni Naidu

Madhu Moopanar

Prathna Paladh

Reudebaker Nel

Shalina Ramnund

Kemira Naidoo

Noelene Rangasamy

Truman Hardon

Zlungile Memela Nma

Theo Wilcox

Prashan Shukla

Precious Mbhele

Wanele Somzana

Zithulele Mazibuko

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16 Housekeeping 18 Conference Programme

HOUSEKEEPING

Housekeeping Notes

ARRIVING ON TUESDAY, 27TH OCTOBER 2026 On arrival at Durban King Shaka International Airport please arrange for your own UBER or TAXI from the airport to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (Durban ICC) to Register as a Delegate, thereafter, visit the Exhibition Hall and network with the Exhibitors, followed by the inauguration of the new President at 18h00, followed by cocktails, leave your luggage at the luggage Holding area, for collection by no later than 21h00.

ACCOMMODATION & SHUTTLE SERVICE The Royal Majestic Hotel (formerly the Hilton Durban) is located on the Durban ICC precinct, making it the most convenient accommodation option for delegates. The City Lodge Durban, situated just 550 metres from the Durban ICC, is also within easy walking distance. The remaining recommended hotels are located along Durban’s beachfront. To assist delegates, IMESA will provide complimentary shuttle services between these hotels and the Durban ICC throughout the conference, morning to the ICC and afternoon back to the hotels on the list below. A shuttle booking system is in place and the shuttle booking link has been emailed to all delegates in September. Please note that shuttle bookings are essential. Delegates who have not made a booking may not be accommodated if the shuttle is fully booked. Daily shuttle services will operate as follows: • Between the participating hotels and the Durban ICC each morning and afternoon. • From the Opening Function on Tuesday evening, departing the Durban ICC at 20h00 and 20h30 with the final shuttle at 21h00 The following hotels are included in the IMESA shuttle service. Delegates are welcome to make their own accommodation bookings directly with any of these hotels • Royal Majestic Hotel (on-site at the Durban ICC) • City Lodge Durban – 550m • Road Lodge Durban – 1.1km

• Southern Sun Elangeni Maharani – 1.1km • The Edward Hotel – 1.6km • Garden Court Marine Parade – 1.7km • Blue Waters Hotel – 2.4km • Sun Coast Towers – 2.7km All distances shown are from the Durban ICC, the venue for the IMESA Conference

DEPARTURE FROM DURBAN ON FRIDAY On Friday, the day of departure, delegates must check out of their hotel and bring their luggage to the Durban ICC. A secure luggage storage facility will be available at the Registration Desk. Please leave your luggage at the clearly marked “Luggage Drop-Off” area. ALL luggage must be collected from the “Luggage Drop-Off” area at Registration no later than 14h00 on Friday. Please note that there will be no shuttle service to King Shaka International Airport. Uber and taxis can be arranged to assist delegates with transport to the airport.

CPD ACCREDITATION The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points will be allocated to those who scan on entering each of the plenary sessions. Scanning before boarding the Technical Tour bus, or entering the Plenary for the on-site Technical tours these tours component accounts Registration for CPD accreditation will be managed by the IMESA Registration staff at the entrance to the Plenary. It is the delegate’s responsibility to ensure that their name badge, which contains a chip, is scanned to record their attendance and CPD points. The system will accurately capture your attendance provided that you scan your name badge at the scanner when entering the Plenary and when departing for the off-site technical tours. Three weeks after the Conference, delegates may request an attendance certificate by emailing conference@imesa.org.za, for the attention of Debbie Anderson.

PARKING There is safe parking available on-site at the Durban ICC.

IMESA

HOUSEKEEPING

SMOKING Smoking is not permitted within any closed area or within close proximity to the exit. There are demarcated areas outside the venue.

FACILITIES IN AND AROUND THE DURBAN ICC

BANKING FACILITIES There is a NEDBANK ATM at the Durban ICC.

MEDICAL FACILITIES & HOSPITALS In the exhibition hall there will be a medic on site for the duration of the conference, for minor medical issues. 1. City Hospital: 2.5km from Durban ICC 83 Ismail C Meer Str, Durban Central (24-hour trauma unit) 2. Netcare Parklands Hospital: 4.5km from Durban ICC 75 Hopelands Rd, Overport, Durban. (A larger Multidisciplinary private hospital offering specialized care and a 24-hour Emergency Department) SHOPPING CENTRE Windermere Shopping Centre: 3.9km from ICC (Lillian Ngoyi Road) Pavilion Shopping Centre: 11.6km from ICC (Food court and more shops than above) WIFI Is available the password will be conveyed to delegates onsite. BRIEFCASES, LAPTOPS AND VALUABLES Do not leave your valuables unattended at your stand or in the conference venue. Delegates are requested to keep their valuables with them at all times.

GENERAL INFORMATION REGISTRATION Delegates can register at the Registration Desk, conveniently situated at the entrance to Exhibition Hall 2. Registration will open on Tuesday from 11h00. Delegates will receive their delegate bag and conference programme together with their name badge. Note that proof of identification will be required when registering. REGISTRATION TIMES Tuesday: 27th October 2026 from 11h00 to 21h00 Wednesday: 28th October 2026 from 07h00 to 11h00 Thurs/Friday 29th & 30th October 2026 from 07h30 to 08h30 * IMPORTANT: Access to the conference venue will not be allowed without FULL payment, on arrival if payment is not received, we will accept the delegates however, the delegate concerned will need to complete an indemnity form, whereby the delegate will be liable for the full account should the company not pay this on their return. SPOTTING THE LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE (LOC) Members of working team will have IMESA branded shirts, we also have an INFO desk at the Exhibition Hall for membership or any other conference related queries. All financial queries will be resolved at the registration desk.

EXHIBITION HALL – DURBAN ICC – HALL 2 All meals and refreshment will be served in the Exhibition Hall, at the Durban ICC, we encourage delegates to visit our exhibitors, who have invested significant effort into their displays and are eager to share their expertise. This is a great opportunity to gain valuable insights into industry challenges and discover new products that could benefit your projects. DELEGATE NAME BADGE Your name badge provides you with access to ALL conference events and must be worn at all times. If your name badge is lost or forgotten, proof of identification will be required before a replacement badge can be issued. A replacement badge will be issued at a cost of R250, payable in cash. SOCIAL EVENTS GOLF DAY @ Cotswold Down Golf & Country Estate Date: Tuesday, 27th October 2026 Venue: Cotswold Down Golf & Country Estate Time: Registration opens at 09h00 & Shotgun start at 11h00 followed by Prizegiving & Dinner @17h00 Address: 95 Inanda Road, Cotswold Down Golf & Country Estate, Hillcrest, Durban OPENING FUNCTION & INAUGURATION OF THE NEW IMESA PRESIDENT Date: Tuesday, 27th October 2026 Venue: Durban ICC Time: 17h30 for 18h00 in the Plenary (followed by cocktails in the Exhibition Hall) – Hall 2 Dress code: Smart Casual COMPANION PROGRAMME – WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY 08h15: Meet at the Delegate Registration area at the Durban ICC THURSDAY SOCIAL EVENING Date: Thursday, 29th October 2026 Venue: Durban Undersea Club (DUC ) 1 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Point Waterfront Theme: Beach Fest Dress Code: Gear up for a dazzling night! Relax and enjoy a fun-filled Beach Fest Evening with a beach-inspired dress code. Think tropical shirts, floral dresses, shorts, linen shirts, beach hats, sunglasses and colourful summer outfits. Comfortable footwear is recommended. PLEASE NOTE: Swimwear is not appropriate. Keep it fun, casual and beach-themed! Time: 18h30 for 19h00 until 23h30 – the last shuttle bus will leave at 23h00 This event is one of the highlights of the Annual IMESA Conference. Please remember to bring your name badge – and for Exhibitors, your tickets – as these are required for entry. Wine, beer, and soft drinks will be served (with a set limit), after which a full cashless bar will be available, accepting debit and credit cards only for security reasons. Transport will be provided to and from the listed hotels. To make use of this service, delegates must book a seat in advance. Once your booking has been confirmed, you will receive a ticket, which must be presented when boarding the shuttle to the Social Evening.

IMESA

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Conference Programme Tuesday, 27 October 2026 11h00–18h00 IMESA Golf Day 11h00–21h00 Conference ONSITE REGISTRATION – Onsite Registration sponsored by uMngeni-uThukela Water 17h30 for 18h00 OPENING FUNCTION & INAUGURATION OF NEW PRESIDENT

Wednesday, 28 October 2026 07h00–08h00 Onsite Registration Open – Onsite Registration sponsored by uMngeni-uThukela Water 08h10 MC opens the 1st day of Conference – MC sponsored by KABE SESSION 1 08h20 Opening by IMESA President 08h30 ADDRESS by SALGA Representative 08h40 ADDRESS by the City 08h50–09h50 KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Refilwe Buthelezi – Keynote Speaker sponsored by ZUTARI 09h50 ADDRESS by ANCHOR SPONSOR: uMngeni-uThukela Water 10h00 IMESA YP2 10h10 Promotion of 2027 IMESA Conference 10h15 REFRESHMENTS SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS SESSION 2 10h55 MC welcomes delegates to Session 2 – MC sponsored by KABE 11h00–11h30

PAPER 1: Christa Liebenberg “Leading calm amidst Chaos: Are you the pressure cooker that is about to explode?”

11h30–12h00

PAPER 2: Shawn Johnson “Cost-Effective flood forecasting for municipal disaster management systems”

12h00–12h30

PAPER 3: Erika Braune & Mike Wiese “Rethinking design compliance: Lessons learned to enhance flood resilience and safety”

12h30 Questions from the floor 12h40 LUNCH SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS SESSION 3 13h40 MC welcomes delegates to Session 3 – MC sponsored by KABE 13h50–14h20 ECSA Presentation 14h50 Questions from the floor 15h00–16h00 PANEL DISCUSSION: “Cities Under Pressure: Rethinking Disaster Response” 16h00 REFRESHMENTS SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS SESSION 4 16h40 MC welcomes delegates to Session 4 – MC sponsored by KABE PAPER 4: Truman Hardon & Roxanne Canny 16h50–17h20 “From Strategy to Implementation: Enabling measurable performance in the eThekwini Water & Sanitation Turnaround Strategy” PAPER 5: James Hough & Theo Kleynhans 17h20–17h50 “Blueprints Reimagined: An integrated water security strategy for a water-stressed municipality – The Prince Albert Town Case Study” 17h50 Questions from the floor 18h00 Close of Conference Day 1

EVENING AT LEISURE Thursday, 29 October 2026 07h00 Coffee in the Exhibition Hall – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS 08h10 MC opens 2nd day of Conference – MC sponsored by KABE

IMESA

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

SESSION 5 08h20–08h50

PAPER 6: Samista Jugwanth & Yasheen Harrielall “Digital enablement for municipal resilience: Moving beyond fragmented initiatives to practical, phased progress”

PAPER 7: Johan Basson 08h50–09h20 “Engineering Service Response to future densification through backyard dwellers, informal settlements and small-scale rental units” 09h20–09h50

PAPER 8: Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau “Experimental evaluation of fly ash and steel dust for eco-friendly mortars in low-cost housing in South Africa”

09h50–10h20

PAPER 9: Sihle Ndumiso Ngema “Recent geometric design research: Extracting actionable practices for municipal road upgrades”

10h20 Questions from the floor 10h30 REFRESHMENTS SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS SESSION 6 11h10 MC welcomes delegates to Session 6 – MC sponsored by KABE 11h20–11h50

PAPER 10: Mike Greatwood “Renavigating the water services amendment Bill: Implications, risks and strategic responses”

PAPER 11: Gerhard Vivier 11h50–12h20 “The Knowledgeable Client: Organisational professionalisation as a strategic enabler of municipal infrastructure delivery, public safety and technical governance” PAPER 12: Chris Wilcock 12h20–12h50 “The Public Procurement Act has been declared invalid – what does this mean for a judiciously reimagined blueprint for effective procurement?” 12h50 Questions from the floor 13h00 LUNCH SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS

TECHNICAL TOURS for the afternoon 14h00 Delegates depart for Technical Tours and return from Technical Tours at 17h00 14h30–16h30 WORKSHOP: National Urban Catchment and Rivers Management Platform 14h30 PLENARY TECH TOUR SESSION 18h30 to 23h30

SOCIAL EVENING VENUE: Durban Undersea Club (DUC)

THEME: Beach Fest

DRESS CODE: Beach chic/casual

Friday, 30 October 2026 07h00 Coffee in the Exhibition Hall – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS 08h10 MC opens last day of Conference – MC sponsored by KABE SESSION 7 08h20–08h50

PAPER 13: Rapheal Bamisaye “A discussion on the application of recycled concrete aggregate in the built environment in South Africa”

08h50–09h20

PAPER 14: Anisur Rahman “Optimized flexible linings for a more sustainable riverbank protection comparing to the traditional riprap”

PAPER 15: Leonard Balakisten & Seelan Rajah 09h20–09h50 “Smart Skies, Resilient Water: UAVS in Infrastructure Management - The role of drone technology in advancing water and sanitation management” PAPER 16: Joshua Spooner & Ione Loots 09h50–10h20 “Rethinking synthetic design storms: Evaluating clipped SCS-SA and Bimodal rainfall events for small urban catchments in eThekwini” 10h20 Questions from the floor 10h30 REFRESHMENTS SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS SESSION 8 11h10 MC welcomes delegates to Session 8 – MC sponsored by KABE PAPER 17: Leon Grobbelaar 11h20–11h50 “Blueprints Reimagined: Preserving municipal landfill airspace as a strategic infrastructure asset – Why the cheapest tender often creates the most expensive landfill” 11h50 Questions from the floor 12h00 Conference Summary: Geoff Tooley 12h20 CLOSE-OFF FORMALITIES 12h45 Presidential Conference Closing & FINAL LUCKY DRAW – Lucky Draws sponsored by BLOC CONTRACTORS 13h00–14h00

LUNCH SERVED IN EXHIBITION HALL – Exhibition Hall sponsored by LIBER GRIDS CONFERENCE CLOSE

IMESA

for

abstracts

Earn up to 3 CPD points by attending

CATEGORIES Buildings, Structures and Housing

Water and Sanitation

Electrical and Electronic

Transport, Roads and Stormwater

Financial, Legal and Regulatory

Ecological, Environmental and Social

A B S T R AC T S S U B M I T T E D BY: 09 April 2027 marketing@imesa.org.za | tel +27 (0)31 266 3263 Contact Melanie Stemmer for an entry form or download it from the website. CONFERENCE ENDORSED BY

t: +27 (031)266 3263 e: conference@imesa.org.za marketing@imesa.org.za www.imesa.org.za

IMESA ORGANISER

THE INSTITUTE OF MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (IMESA)

22 ANCHOR SPONSOR uMngeni-uThukela Water 22 GOLD SPONSOR BigeTron LiBER GRIDS 23 Magalies Water 23 SILVER SPONSOR BLOC Contractors 24 Kabe Consulting Engineers

24 B RONZE SPONSORS Makhaotse, Narasimulu & Associates MPAMOT Saint-Gobian Africa 25 Solfab Zutari 25 MEDIA PARTNER IMIESA Publications 32 EXHIBITOR FLOORPLAN 33 EXHIBITOR PROFILES

SPONSORS

ANCHOR SPONSOR UMNGENI-UTHUKELA WATER

uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) is one of South Africa’s largest and most strategically positioned water boards, delivering bulk water services that sustain communities, industries, and municipalities across KwaZulu-Natal. Established in 1974 and renamed in 2023 following the incorporation of Mhlathuze Water into the former Umgeni Water, UUW has become a cornerstone of water security and economic resilience in the province. The organisation operates within a vast geographical footprint of 94,359 km², providing services to over 12.42 million people and 2.9 million households. Its customer base includes local, metropolitan and district municipalities such as eThekwini, iLembe, Ugu, Harry Gwala, uMgungundlovu, Msunduzi, and Mhlathuze Local Municipality, as well as private bulk water suppliers like Siza Water and industries. Supporting Industry and Growth KwaZulu-Natal’s industrial heartland, particularly the Port City of Richards Bay in King Cetshwayo District Municipality, relies heavily on UUW. The organisation supplies water to globally recognised industrial leaders including Mondi Paper, Richards Bay Minerals (RBM), Hulamin, Mpact, Foskor, Tronox, South 32, Richards Bay Titanium, and Wilmar. This reliable water supply not only secures day-today operations but also enhances investor confidence, ensuring KwaZulu-Natal remains a competitive hub for manufacturing, exports, and job creation. Engineering Assets at Scale UUW’s bulk water services are anchored by an extensive infrastructure portfolio designed and maintained to the highest engineering standards. These assets include: 981km of pipelines and 53km of tunnels; 14 impoundments; 53 water treatment works; 1 effluent pump station; and 23 wastewater treatment works. This infrastructure reflects decades of engineering innovation, continuous investment, and a commitment to operational excellence. Governance and Strategic Alignment As a National Government Business Enterprise, UUW operates in compliance with the Water Services Act (1997) and the Public Finance Management Act (1999). It reports directly to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), through the Board and the Chief Executive, ensuring transparency, accountability, and alignment with South Africa’s long-term water security goals. Partnering for the Future With climate change, urbanisation, and rising industrial demand placing increasing pressure on water resources, UUW continues to prioritise infrastructure development, water reuse, and sustainable supply. Its engineering expertise positions the organisation as both a reliable service provider and a partner to municipalities, industries, and communities striving for resilience and growth.

GOLD SPONSOR BIGETRON

BigeTron is a Stellenbosch-based technology manufacturer providing digital instrumentation and remote monitoring solutions that enable datadriven infrastructure management. Since 1990, it has grown into a vertically integrated business with in-house hardware, firmware, and cloud analytics capabilities, ensuring reliable performance and continuous innovation. Its locally designed and manufactured solutions strengthen supply chain resilience and are engineered for emerging market conditions. At the core of its offering is the MyCity platform, which converts real-time field data into actionable insights through flexible connectivity options and seamless integration with smart infrastructure systems. Supported by strategic partnerships and integration expertise, BigeTron delivers tailored monitoring solutions across diverse infrastructure sectors. BigeTron deliver actionable intelligence across water, energy, agriculture, mining, and municipal systems. Our multi-disciplinary focus means we do not just solve sector-specific challenges – we integrate solutions that strengthen institutions, optimise resources, and create measurable socio-economic value. W: www.bigetron.io

GOLD SPONSOR LIBER GRIDS

LiBER GRIDS, a specialised division of LiBER CIVILS, redefines urban infrastructure with smart, resilient stormwater solutions. Our patented, flush-by-design system eliminates the pervasive "klak-klak" noise of traditional drainage by neutralising the physical gaps that cause rattle and structural wear. Engineered for security, our grids feature a proprietary lock-down mechanism with tamper-proof sheer-nuts, rendering assets entirely theftproof. Backed by an industry-leading 25-year structural guarantee and ISO 9001/SABS certifications, we provide municipalities and developers with quiet, high-performing infrastructure. Visit stands 49 & 50 to see the engineering behind the silence.

W: www.umngeni-uthukela.co.za W: www.libergrids.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSOR

SILVER SPONSOR

MAGALIES WATER

BLOC CONTRACTORS

Magalies Water Board was established in 1969 in terms of Government Notice 234 of 1969 primarily to supply water needs of platinum mines in the Rustenburg and Thabazimbi areas. Magalies Water provides water for industries and communities, and in 1996 it extended its water supply services to operate, maintain and supply retail water to select local municipalities and the City of Tshwane Metropolitan. Magalies Water as one of eight water boards in the country is mandated to provide bulk water and sanitation services.

BUILT ON WHAT LIES BENEATH

As at 2022, the Water Board following the expanded mandate of the board the utility currently services the North West Province’s municipalities under a Section 30 agreement to municipalities such as - Ngaka Modiri Molema District, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District and Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati Districts. While in Limpopo Province’s Waterberg District the utility services the located local municipalities under a Section 29 agreement to municipalities including Thabazimbi, Modimolle-Mookgophong, and BelaBela Local Municipalities. In addition to public sector customers, Magalies Water provide primary water services to mining operations in located in North West, Gauteng and Limpopo totalling sixteen (16).

Pipejacking and microtunnelling are where BLOC's trenchless capability shows most clearly, with the plant and technical know-how to install bulk sewer and large-diameter pipelines under roads, rail and waterways to tight tolerances, keeping surface disruption to a minimum. Alongside this, BLOC's sheet piling and shoring division covers temporary and permanent lateral support, soil nailing, ground anchors and shotcrete/gunite — work that has become routine on deep excavations, canal and embankment repairs, and shaft sinking, regardless of how unforgiving the ground proves to be.

Magalies Water as an organ of state reporting to the Minister of Water and Sanitation and utilizes the Pienaars and Crocodile rivers as major catchment areas of raw water. With a total staff compliment of over 700, the entity owns and operates four water treatment plants - Vaalkop (Rustenburg), Klipdrift, Wallmansthal and Cullinan (Pretoria) with the combined capacity of 340Ml/d, as well as a state-of-the-art scientific services laboratory in Brits, which is central to water quality monitoring and assurance in compliance with the sectoral standard – SANS 241. The utility’s recent milestone includes the completion of South Africa’s first ever modular plant which was in direct response to the long-standing Hammanskraal water supply crisis.

For more than two decades, BLOC Contractors has specialised in the parts of a project most contractors would rather subcontract out: what happens underground, and what holds the ground back. From a civil and building contracting start in 2002, BLOC has grown into a dedicated geotechnical and trenchless specialist – and this year joins IMESA as a Silver sponsor and exhibitor.

BLOC operates from Durban (Scott Magnus, Colin Howe), Cape Town (Tiaan Ras) and Johannesburg (Byron Field), with business development headed by Llewellan Pillay, and a track record extending into neighbouring SADC countries. W: www.bloc.co.za

W: www.magalieswater.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSOR KABE CONSULTING ENGINEERS

BRONZE SPONSOR MAKHAOTSE, NARASIMULU & ASSOCIATES (MNA)

As a Level 1 B-BBEE contributor and ISO 9001:2015-certified company, we are committed to infrastructure development and the development of social and economic projects that benefit people and advance civil progress across Africa. Our track record has enabled us to evolve from a traditional civil engineering consulting firm into a provider of a wide range of infrastructure development and civil engineering solutions. We support municipalities, cities, provincial and national developments, and development organisations by providing infrastructure solutions, project management, planning and design, risk management, project financing, and specialist procurement. Our areas of expertise include municipal infrastructure, bulk infrastructure, roads and stormwater, water infrastructure, structures, energy, and mining social responsibility infrastructure projects. With more than 20 years’ experience, our diverse skills mix and combined experience of over 150 years make Kabe Consulting Engineers your ideal implementing engineering partner.

Over 26 years, Makhaotse, Narasimulu and Associates (Pty) Ltd, founded in 2000 by Martin Makhaotse and Sagren Narasimulu, has delivered innovative engineering solutions that strengthen communities and shape South Africa’s infrastructure. MNA has become a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy, offering services in four main divisions: Water and Sanitation, Transportation, Buildings, and Integrated Systems Engineering, while developing expertise in various key disciplines within these areas. MNA is a proudly people-centred organisation, committed to uplifting our employees, empowering future leaders, building succession planning and making a meaningful difference in the communities we serve. Succession planning has been a key focus in recent years, culminating in the appointment of 6 new Associates in 2026, which also included the retirement of co-founder Martin Makhaotse. Martin continues to provide ad hoc support to the leadership team, which also includes co-founder and Managing Director Sagren Narasimulu and Executive Directors Nerave Moodley and Agilen Moodley.

W: www.kabe.co.za W: www.mna-sa.co.za

BRONZE SPONSOR

MPAMOT

SAINT-GOBAIN AFRICA

MPAMOT Africa is the largest women-owned and managed engineering, development and advisory consulting practice on the African continent. MPAMOT delivers multidisciplinary services across Infrastructure, Renewable Energy, Water, Advisory, Transportation and Power. We partner with clients to solve complex challenges and create lasting value. Grounded in engineering excellence, integrity, and inclusive development, we are committed to building resilient infrastructure, empowering communities, and enabling prosperity across Africa - one step, one partnership, and one success story at a time. Inspired by nature and the people we serve, we turn vision into impact – shaping a future defined by innovation, resilience, and meaningful progress.

Make it in Africa to Build Africa (MABA) - more than just a slogan; not just words, but a rhythm, a pulse, a promise.

W: www.mpamot.com

It is the heartbeat of Saint-Gobain Africa. A regional commitment that transforms our global purpose – Making the World a Better Home – into something deeply personal. a.b.e.®, a division of Saint-Gobain Africa, specializes in construction chemical products and systems for concrete works, concrete repair & protection, waterproofing, flooring, and sealant & adhesives applications. Our solutions support infrastructure projects, residential & commercial buildings, and industrial projects - with 95 years’ of expertise, proven performance and technical reliability. W: www.abe.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

BRONZE SPONSOR SOLFAB

MEDIA PARTNER IMIESA PUBLICATIONS www.imesa.org.za

IMESA The official magazine of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa

INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT • SERVICE DELIVERY • ROADS • BUILDING • MAINTENANCE • ENERGY • WASTE

Solfab is a proudly South African engineering company specialising in HDPE piping systems, GRP Structures and mouldings, providing supply, fabrication, installation and technical consulting solutions to the municipal, civil engineering, mining, industrial and infrastructure sectors. With a strong commitment to quality, integrity and technical excellence, Solfab delivers reliable, cost-effective and standards-compliant solutions for challenging infrastructure requirements.

Much Asphalt

Changing the narrative for industry sustainability

Expert gabion designs protect and last for generations

RENEWABLE ENERGY & ELECTRIFICATION Advances in AI and smart metering

IMESA KZN WOMEN’S DAY 2026

Connecting women, building careers and creating legacy

I S S N 0 2 5 7 19 7 8 Vo l u m e 5 0 N o . 0 9 • O c t o b e r 2I0S2S5N• 0R2 5 5 7. 0 19 0 7(8i n cVo l . lVAT u m e) 51 N o . 0 7 • A u g u s t 2 0 2 6 • R 5 5 . 0 0 ( i n c l . VAT )

Our capabilities include solid-bore and structured-wall HDPE piping, HDPE fittings and manholes, GRP design and manufacture, structural engineering, CAD support and on-site technical services. Combining extensive industry experience with innovative engineering, Solfab provides complete turnkey solutions that support the sustainable development and resilience of South Africa’s infrastructure. W: www.solfab.co.za

BRONZE SPONSOR

Our content is published on different platforms to organically maximise our reach. In addition to our websites, these include: • Print and digital versions of the magazine, which is published ten times a year. • Digital newsletters. • Webinars, videos and e-learning. • Communication via social media.

ZUTARI

The digital version of IMIESA magazine is fully downloadable, shareable and hyperlinked, which extends our audience beyond the confirmed distribution statistics. Your message is delivered on a platform that is optimally formatted to both desktop and mobile devices.

W: www.imesa.org.za

Our multidisciplinary expertise enables us to co-create infrastructure that is technically excellent, socially meaningful, and environmentally responsible, maximising value through advanced engineering principles and a commitment to sustainability. Purpose-led work. From renewable energy to resilient infrastructure, our projects solve real-world challenges. Every day is an opportunity to design with purpose and innovate with intent. People-first culture. We bring together diverse thinkers, creators, and problem-solvers; all driven by a shared commitment to impact. Here, your voice is heard, your growth is supported, and your well-being matters. Connected by design. We connect differently; across disciplines, geographies, and perspectives, to unlock better outcomes. Our collaborative model breaks silos, integrates global expertise, and brings creativity and digital innovation into every stage of the project lifecycle. It's how we deliver real impact, together. W: www.zutari.com

IMESA

SPONSORS

ANCHOR SPONSOR

Building Water Security for a Resilient Future

Mngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) is one of South Africa’s largest water boards, delivering bulk water services that sustain communities, industries, and municipalities across the Province of KwaZulu-Natal. Established in 1974 and renamed in 2023 following the reconfiguration of the erstwhile uMgeni Water and Mhlathuze Water Boards, UUW has become a cornerstone of water security and economic resilience in the province. The organisation operates within a vast geographical footprint of 94,359 km², providing services to over 12.42 million people and 2.9 million households. Its municipal customer base includes the eThekwini Metro, iLembe, Ugu, Harry Gwala, uMgungundlovu Districts, the Msunduzi, and Mhlathuze Local Municipalities, as well as private bulk water suppliers like Siza Water.

Supporting Industry and Growth KwaZulu-Natal’s industrial heartland, particularly Richards Bay in the King Cetshwayo District Municipality, relies heavily on UUW. The organisation supplies water and waste water management to globally recognised industrial leaders including Mondi Paper, Richards Bay Minerals (RBM), Hulamin, Mpact, Foskor, Tronox, South 32, Richards Bay Titanium, and Wilmar. This critical service not only secures day-today operations but also enhances investor confidence, ensuring that KwaZulu-Natal remains a competitive hub for manufacturing, exports, and job creation.

Engineering Assets at Scale UUW’s bulk water services are anchored by an extensive infrastructure portfolio designed and maintained to the highest engineering standards. These assets include:

IMESA

• 981 km of pipelines and 53 km of tunnels; • 14 impoundments; • 53 water treatment works; • 1 effluent pump station; and • 23 wastewater treatment works. This infrastructure reflects decades of engineering innovation, continuous investment, and a commitment to operational excellence.

Governance and Strategic Alignment As a National Government Business Enterprise, UUW operates in compliance with the Water Services Act (1997) and the Public Finance Management Act (1999). It reports directly to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), through the Board and the Chief Executive, ensuring transparency, accountability, and alignment with South Africa’s long-term water security goals.

Partnering for the Future With climate change, urbanisation, and rising industrial demand placing increasing pressure on water resources, UUW continues to prioritise infrastructure development, water reuse, and sustainable supply. Its engineering expertise positions the organisation as both a reliable service provider and a partner to municipalities, industries, and communities striving for resilience and growth.

Flagship Projects Driving Change Among the most notable initiatives is the uMkhomazi Water Project, a multi-phased development which, upon completion, will significantly ease the burden of water shortage in no less than six Water Services Authorities in KwaZulu-Natal. The first phase of

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the project includes the construction of a dam, raw water tunnel, water treatment works, pipelines, and reservoirs. With Water User and Offtake Agreements signed in April 2024, and Treasury’s approval of a costsharing model (50% state funding and user contributions at R2.58/kℓ), the groundwork has been laid for long-term regional supply security. Other transformative projects include: • Lower uMkhomazi Bulk Water Supply Scheme: Serving eThekwini and Ugu, the project is progressing well. Ngwadini Dam is 13% complete. The Goodenough Abstraction Works are 80% complete, and Phase 2 – including a 100 Mℓ/d treatment plant – is due for completion by 2029. This will greatly assist in alleviating water challenges in parts of the uGu District and the eThekwini Municipality. • Greater Mpofana Bulk Water Supply Scheme: Phase 1 was completed in 2023, benefitting Nottingham Road and Bruntville. Phase 2 involves a 25 km steel pipeline to Lions River, set for construction in 2024/25. • Impendle Bulk Water Supply Scheme: The Stepmore scheme (1.6 Mℓ/d, expandable to 3 Mℓ/d) is due to start in 2026, while the Nzinga scheme (13 Mℓ/d, expandable to 18.5 Mℓ/d) is in detailed design, scheduled for 2027. • Southern Ndwedwe and uMshwathi Projects: Key components such as reservoirs and pipelines are progressing, with Southern Ndwedwe Phase 4 already 75% complete. • Other Regional Upgrades: Work is also advancing on the Lower Thukela Phase 2 upgrade, Maphumulo Phase 3, Mhlabatshane Phase 2, the Vulindlela Scheme, and wastewater treatment projects in Mpophomeni and Darvill.

plans outline existing service levels, future demand, and infrastructure needs for all Water Services Authorities in the province. The UAPs serve as a roadmap for long-term equitable development – and the R22 billion capex programme is their implementation blueprint.

A Water-Secure Future in Sight Through visionary planning, strategic partnerships, and a commitment to inclusive development, uMngeni-uThukela Water is laying the foundation for long-term water security in KwaZulu-Natal. It goes without saying that the R22 billion investment will not only eliminate supply backlogs and strengthen system resilience – it will also redefine the province’s socio-economic future.

Bridging the Urban-Rural Divide A major strength of uMngeni-uThukela Water’s plan is its deliberate focus on underserved areas, particularly rural and peri-urban communities. Many of these communities currently fall outside any formal water provision network and have long suffered from unreliable or non-existent supply. This focus aligns with the Universal Access Plans (UAPs) developed by the utility in collaboration with national and provincial departments, including the Department of Water and Sanitation and the KZN Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. Completed in 2019, these

www.umngeni-uthukela.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSOR

Infrastructure is always talking. Are we listening?

t is 02:17 on a Sunday morning. A water main bursts, emptying a reservoir. Thousands of residents wake to dry taps. Municipal call centres are overwhelmed. Maintenance teams scramble to isolate the leak as reservoir levels drop and pressures fluctuate. By sunrise, the municipality is managing not only a pipe failure but also mounting frustration voiced publicly by the community. For most municipalities, this is a familiar story. But here is the real question: could it have been prevented? Most likely. Because a burst pipe and empty reservoir is never the first sign that something is wrong. Hours earlier, pressure patterns had shifted. Flow behaviour had changed. Reservoir levels were responding abnormally. The network was already speaking but nobody was listening. Infrastructure is constantly communicating. The challenge is not whether it speaks, but whether we have learned how to hear it.

The South African Reality Across South Africa, municipalities face the same reality: ageing assets, constrained budgets, and limited technical capacity. In this environment, reactive maintenance is no longer enough. Every pipeline, pump station, reservoir, and pressure reducing valve generates valuable operational intelligence. The real opportunity lies in turning that information into timely engineering decisions.

Digital Instrumentation: A New Era That is where digital instrumentation is changing the way municipalities manage infrastructure. Real time visibility enables engineers to identify abnormal operating conditions before they become service delivery failures. Mainline pressure, flow, reservoir levels, pump performance, and energy consumption can all be monitored continuously, allowing maintenance teams to intervene earlier, prioritise resources more effectively, and make decisions based on evidence and not assumptions.

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The result is not just more data. It is fewer surprises, better asset management, more resilient operations, and greater confidence in the decisions municipal engineers make.

BigeTron’s Solution For more than 30 years, BigeTron has been helping municipalities embrace the next generation of infrastructure management. Proudly designed and manufactured in Stellenbosch, South Africa, BigeTron develops intelligent electronic instrumentation specifically for African operating environments. Our vertically integrated approach – combining hardware design, embedded firmware, communications technology, and cloud based software – delivers robust, reliable monitoring solutions municipalities can depend on. At the heart of this capability is MyCity, BigeTron’s scalable web based platform that converts real time field data into meaningful operational intelligence, helping municipalities see problems sooner and respond smarter.

The Future of Municipal Engineering The future of municipal engineering will not be defined solely by the infrastructure we build, but by how intelligently we manage it. Visit BigeTron’s Stand 24 and discover how we empower municipalities to make better decisions, optimise operations, and improve service delivery. BigeTron – Measure. Monitor. Optimise.

www.bigetron.io

SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSOR

Redefining Urban Silence

The Engineering Behind the "Klak"

or decades, property developers, municipal engineers and residential estate managers have had to contend with the familiar rhythmic “klak-klak” of loose drainage infrastructure. Yet this persistent noise is more than an urban annoyance. According to civil engineering principles, movement between a drainage grid and its supporting frame can indicate a deeper mechanical problem, with repeated shifting and impact potentially contributing to deterioration of the surrounding pavement. LiBER GRIDS addresses the problem at its source. Its flush-by-design, precision-seated system is engineered to eliminate the gaps that allow conventional grids to shift and rattle. By keeping the grid securely seated within its frame, the system is designed to reduce movement, minimise noise and protect the surrounding pavement from the damaging effects of repeated impact.

Engineering Security into South Africa’s Infrastructure Infrastructure theft presents a significant challenge for municipalities, property developers and asset managers across South Africa. LiBER GRIDS responds with a proprietary high-security lockdown mechanism that mechanically anchors the grid into a heavy-duty integrated frame using specialised, tamper-resistant shear nuts. Removal is restricted to authorised personnel using a customised LiBER GRIDS extraction tool, providing an additional level of security against unauthorised access and theft. The integrated locking system also contributes to the grid’s stability, helping to eliminate the movement responsible for the familiar “klak-klak” and reducing the potential for premature wear.

From Functional Infrastructure to Precinct Design Drainage infrastructure does not have to compromise the visual quality of a development. With a sleek, minimalist aesthetic, LiBER GRIDS provide a flush, continuous profile designed to align seamlessly with asphalt, concrete pavements and high-end paving blocks. Clean geometric slit patterns and a sophisticated textured finish give the LiBER GRID a contemporary appearance suited to commercial precincts, residential estates and modern urban environments. The result is drainage infrastructure that is designed to perform its essential function while integrating into the overall architectural language of the space.

Built for Local Conditions Manufactured with South Africa’s demanding environmental and infrastructure conditions in mind, LiBER GRIDS are designed in alignment with applicable Red Book guidelines and SANS standards. The system is engineered to accommodate challenges ranging from high-velocity stormwater flows to heavy axle loads and the associated stresses of braking and acceleration. Precision manufacturing and controlled seating tolerances are intended to minimise the impact of road grit becoming trapped between the grid and frame. The system is also engineered to specified load-class requirements, supporting structural stability under demanding traffic conditions. LiBER GRIDS is backed by a 25-year structural guarantee, reflecting a focus on long-term infrastructure performance rather than reactive maintenance.

The system also supports Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) principles, with flow-rate capabilities designed to integrate with modern Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). This enables drainage infrastructure to form part of a broader approach to stormwater management, including the management of the critical first flush of stormwater pollution. For consulting engineers, procurement professionals, property developers and asset managers, the shift is towards drainage infrastructure that is not simply functional, but engineered as an integrated part of the built environment. LiBER GRIDS brings together stability, security, aesthetics and water-management performance in a drainage solution designed for the demands of modern South African infrastructure.

www.libergrids.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

GOLD SPONSOR

From Regional Water Supplier to Strategic Bulk Water Partner

agalies Water Board was established in 1969 in terms of Government Notice 234 of 1969 primarily to supply water needs of platinum mines in the Rustenburg and Thabazimbi areas. Magalies Water provides water for industries and communities, and in 1996 it extended its water supply services to operate, maintain and supply retail water to select local municipalities and the City of Tshwane Metropolitan. Magalies Water as one of eight water boards in the country is mandated to provide bulk water and sanitation services.

Extending water services As at 2022, the Water Board following the expanded mandate of the board the utility currently services the North West Province’s municipalities under

a Section 30 agreement to municipalities such as - Ngaka Modiri Molema District, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda District and Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati Districts. While in Limpopo Province’s Waterberg District the utility services the located local municipalities under a Section 29 agreement to municipalities including Thabazimbi, Modimolle-Mookgophong, and Bela-Bela Local Municipalities. In addition to public sector customers, Magalies Water provide primary water services to mining operations in located in North West, Gauteng and Limpopo totalling sixteen (16). Magalies Water as an organ of state reporting to the Minister of Water and Sanitation and utilizes the Pienaars and Crocodile rivers as major catchment areas of raw water. With a total staff compliment of over 700, the entity owns and operates four water treatment plants - Vaalkop (Rustenburg), Klipdrift, Wallmansthal and Cullinan (Pretoria) with the combined capacity of 340 Mℓ/d, as well as a state-of-the-art scientific services laboratory in Brits, which is central to water quality monitoring and assurance in compliance with the sectoral standard – SANS 241. The utility’s recent milestone includes the completion of South Africa’s first ever modular plant which was in direct response to the long-standing Hammanskraal water supply crisis.

www.magalieswater.co.za

IMESA

SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSORS

Built on what lies beneath

ince 2002, BLOC Contractors has built its reputation on ground most other contractors won't touch. What began as a specialist civil and building contracting outfit has grown, over more than two decades, into one of Southern Africa's leading geotechnical and trenchless construction companies – proud to be a Silver sponsor and exhibitor at this year's IMESA conference. BLOC's core strength lies below the surface. Trenchless installation, sheet piling and shoring form the backbone of the business, disciplines that BLOC treats as one integrated engineering problem, not a set of trades to be parcelled out to different subcontractors. Ground conditions, contract risk and construction sequencing are planned together from the outset, ensuring that BLOC holds to its programme and budget on projects where a single miscalculation below ground can undo months of work above it.

Engineering beneath the surface On the trenchless side, BLOC delivers pipejacking and microtunnelling at real scale, from large culvert and pipe-jacking solutions to long, tight tolerance microtunnelling drives for bulk sewer offering main contractors and municipal engineers a way to install critical infrastructure beneath

roads, rail and waterways without the cost and disruption of open cut trenching. BLOC has developed significant experience and capacity with its sheetpiling and shoring systems, temporary and permanent lateral support, soil nailing and shotcrete/gunite applications, solutions increasingly called on for deep excavations, canal and embankment works, and shaft construction in South Africa's varied and often difficult founding conditions.

Specialist solutions, one partner These techniques sit alongside BLOC's broader geotechnical offering, which includes ground anchors and rockfall protection, giving municipal and infrastructure clients a single specialist partner across the full range of underground and lateral support works. With offices in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg, project experience extending into neighbouring SADC countries, and a fleet of owned specialist plant backed by an experienced, hands-on team, BLOC is positioned to support municipal engineering projects wherever they arise. www.bloc.co.za

20 Years of Building Africa’s Infrastructure

ith over Two decades, Kabe Consulting Engineers has grown from establishing itself as one of the homegrown names with a track record in the civil and infrastructure development industry. Our company has become one of the few success stories that started with an entrepreneurial vision and the quest for African greatness. Our company celebrates 20 years in business and an ongoing commitment to the belief that all it takes is implementing a proper civil infrastructure in improving lives in the communities we operate in. We intend to celebrate this milestone with all our stakeholders, including critical role players and beneficiaries.

From Vision to Impact We cover projects across all disciplines and all shapes and have the capacity to deliver on any project. With a broad track record of clientele ranging from Municipalities, Road Agencies, Water Authorities, Provincial Departments, State Owned and enabler entities across the country and over the years we have led and implemented appointments from simple to complex projects which 40% of our project are in Municipalities, 27% Development Agencies and 23% are in private Clients. Our brand stands for success and the last two decades proves as a testament to our mission and commitment to providing our clients with services to enable them to improve lives. Our track record speaks, and we are proud of our history. We look forward to a great future “said Mpho Malefane, Marketing and Business Development Officer” Through our alliance the company is now making inroads into the SADC and East Africa Markets and endeavour to make a meaningful impact in these African markets and advance Africa’s infrastructure.

www.kabe.co.za

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EXHIBITOR FLOORPLAN

EXHIBITION HALL SPONSORED BY 19

6m BANNER WALL

30 75

14 12 11

8 7

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GL EVENTS

6 5

ENTRANCE

AKS Lining Systems

Ikhuba Holdings

42 + 55 N&Z Instrumentation & Control

AUMANAT

IMQS Software

Obscape

Bargaining Council for the Civil Engineering Industry (BCCEI)

33 + 34 Indlela Consultants

PPS for Professionals

BigeTron

JOAT Consulting

Pro-Plan Consulting Engineers

Bluewater Bio

Kabe Consulting Engineers

ROMH Consulting

Bosch Projects

Kalabas

BVi Consulting Engineers

4X3 56

KMSD Engineering Consultants

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) & Professional Development + Projects (SAICE-PDP)

Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA)

Kufanikiwa Consulting

South African Local Government Association (SALGA)

Civil Designer

LVSA Valves

SBS Tanks

Denso South Africa

m4a

Maccaferri

65 + 84 DroneLabs 7 63

49 + 50 LiBER GRIDS

Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA)

25 + 26 Macsteel Fluid Control

EDAMS Technology – A Division of Hydro-Comp Enterprises

Magalies Water

Maverick Trading 59cc

Med-TechEngineers Academy

Envirosan Sanitation Solutions

47-48

ERWAT

GLS Consulting

Hall Longmore

Gorman-Rupp Africa

59 + 62 Herrenknecht AG

39 + 40 Seapro SA 73

Sika South Africa

Sinowatek

68-69

SMARTLOCK

SMEC South Africa

Stewarts And Lloyds Projects And Contracts

Metsiworx

45-46

Structa Technology

Makhaotse, Narasimulu and Associates (MNA)

Superior Filtration

MPAMOT

Syntell 23/9/2026

MS Smart Solutions

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

National Treasury

Ultra Control Valves

Hewi Africa

National Energy Regulator Of South Africa (Nersa)

uMngeni-uThukela Water

Honeywell Technologies

18-21

4-5

Water Research Commission (WRC)

IDEXX Laboratories

NuWater Systems

Zutari

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

AKS LINING SYSTEMS

BARGAINING COUNCIL FOR THE CIVIL ENGINEERING INDUSTRY (BCCEI)

AKS Lining Systems is a manufacturer of high-performance thermoplastic liners, specialising in geomembrane and corrosion protection linings. Geoliner, produced from HDPE or LLDPE, is the optimal choice for various containment applications. AKS CPL, with its matrix of anchors, offers exceptional long-lasting protection against chemical attack. Based in Cape Town, our products are used in diverse applications such as mining, environmental conservation, landfills, water treatment, sewerage tunnels, WWTWs, TSFs, digesters, reservoirs and general infrastructure. We export to more than 30 countries world-wide and offer strong support to the South African and SADC markets.

The Civil engineering remains a cornerstone of infrastructure development and economic growth, embodying a wide range of projects from roads and bridges to dams and urban development.

AKS are ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified and has a state-of-the art laboratory that ensures resin and all liner produced meets or exceeds quality standards. Our sales engineers, with a wealth of knowledge, will assist and provide you with long-lasting solutions for your project. Representative: Corlia Claassen T: +27 (0)21 983 2700 E: aksmarketing@aks.co.za W: www.aks.co.za Stand: 57

The Bargaining Council for the Civil Engineering Industry (BCCEI) plays a pivotal role in maintaining harmony, setting standards and ensuring fair practices. Membership is not just a legal requirement but should be seen as a strategic asset for businesses operating within this space. There are multifaceted benefits of belonging to the BCCEI, both for employers and employees in the civil engineering industry, including establishing and enforcing industry standards ensuring sustainability in civil engineering projects. Representative: Lindie Fourie T: +27 (0)11 450 4966 E: Lindie.fourie@bccei.co.za W: www.bccei.co.za Stand: 82

BIGETRON

AUMANAT

AUMANAT cc, servicing KwaZulu-Natal since 1995, provides sales, service, installation and repairs for a comprehensive range of valve automation products, including AUMA, SIPOS, DREHMO, ARIS and J&J electric actuators, Cam-Act locally manufactured pneumatic actuators, and IVEA Sluice Gate Jacks. With 39 years of actuator industry experience and ISO 9001:2015 certification, AUMANAT offers professional technical support from our fully equipped office and workshop in Mahogany Ridge, Pinetown, backed by a 24-hour, 7-day service. AUMANAT – Your Complete Valve Automation Solution Representative: Peter Meyer T: +27 (0)82 443 6030 E: peter@aumanat.co.za W: www.aumanat.co.za Stand: 51

BigeTron, proudly designed and manufactured in Stellenbosch, South Africa, delivers digital instrumentation and remote monitoring that powers data driven infrastructure management. Since 1990, we’ve evolved into a vertically integrated technology business, uniting hardware, firmware, and cloud analytics to ensure resilience, innovation, and reliable performance. Our local manufacturing strengthens supply chains and tailors solutions for emerging markets. At the core is MyCity, a scalable platform turning real time data into actionable insights across GSM, LoRaWAN, Sigfox, Bluetooth, and Wi Fi. With strategic partnerships and integration expertise, BigeTron drives the Bigen Group’s transition to intelligent infrastructure, enabling predictive insight and smarter decision making at scale. BigeTron deliver actionable intelligence across water, energy, agriculture, mining, and municipal systems. Our multi-disciplinary focus means we do not just solve sector-specific challenges — we integrate solutions that strengthen institutions, optimise resources, and create measurable socio-economic value. Representative: Pieter Cilliers T: +27 (0)51 430 1423 E: Pieter.cilliers@bigengroup.com W: Bigetron.io Stand: 24

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

BLUEWATER BIO

Bluewater Bio is an award-winning water technology company headquartered in London, UK, providing innovative and sustainable solutions for water and wastewater treatment. The company delivers proprietary technologies that help municipal and industrial clients improve water quality, increase treatment efficiency, enable water reuse, and reduce energy, land and chemical consumption. Operating globally, particularly in water-scarce regions, Bluewater Bio supports critical infrastructure projects that protect water resources and address the global water crisis. Its market-leading technologies, including FilterClear® and HYBACS®, are recognised for delivering cost-effective, high-performance treatment solutions that improve environmental outcomes, regulatory compliance, and long-term operational resilience. Representative: Derick Coetzee T: +27 (0)83 308 0038 E: Derick.coetzee@bluewaterbio.com W: www.bluewaterbio.com Stand: 9

BOSCH PROJECTS

Bosch Projects is a proudly South African owned (Level 1 B-BBEE contributor) that provides innovative engineering solutions to the infrastructure and industrial sectors, from planning and design stages, through to construction supervision and commissioning. With client relationships being central to our business, we offer professional services in several disciplines, including water and wastewater, roads and land developments, human settlements, agriculture and irrigation, sugar, as well as sugar equipment and building services. Our key clients include municipalities, parastatals, sugar, other food producers and property developers. Having been established since 1961, and focusing on integrity, trust and respect, the company has a proud record of technical excellence which include awards from IMESA, CESA, SAICE and SASTA. Representative: Andrew Cruickshank T: +27 (0)31 535 6000 E: bpdbn@boschprojects.co.za W: www.boschholdings.co.za Stand: 77

BVi CONSULTING ENGINEERS

With a proud heritage of over 59 years, BVi has cultivated a trusted and respected brand, both locally and internationally. We proudly serve medium to large corporations across South Africa and beyond, offering integrated, professional engineering services tailored to each client’s needs. At BVi, our brand is more than a visual identity – it is a reflection of our purpose and principles. Our motto, “Big enough to make a difference, small enough to care”, speaks to our ability to deliver high-impact solutions while maintaining close, meaningful relationships with clients and communities. At BVi, we are continuously evolving to meet the challenges of tomorrow, growing our business, enriching our culture, and ensuring that our people, our clients, and our communities remain at the heart of everything we do. Representative: Premala Singh T: +27 (0)82 887 8804 E: premalas@bvi.co.za W: www.bvi.co.za Stand: 81

CONSULTING ENGINEERS SOUTH AFRICA (CESA)

“Your Partner in Enabling Consulting Engineering Excellence” Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA) is a voluntary association of Consulting Engineering firms with a member base across the country totaling in excess of 580 companies. CESA is the custodian of the wellbeing of the industry supported by member firms who employ approximately 17 000 people. CESA members are compelled to subscribe to upholding the integrity of the industry by adhering to a professional code of ethics providing quality and cost-effective professional consulting engineering services. Member companies offer consulting engineering services that include a comprehensive range of planning, design and project delivery services across all engineering disciplines including Civil, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial and Mining etc. The organisation serves as a channel for Clients to address industry concerns while at the same time providing a platform for the sharing of information with the aim of assisting in optimising the planning and delivery of infrastructure projects both in the public and private sector. President: Vishal Haripersad Deputy President: Jabulile Msiza CEO: Chris Campbell T: +27 (0)11 463 2022 | +27 (0)78 740 2795 E: general@cesa.co.za W: www.cesa.co.za Stand: 30

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EXHIBITOR PROFILES

CIVIL DESIGNER

DRONELABS

Civil Designer is a specialist software company focused on developing advanced infrastructure design solutions for civil engineering professionals. Originally established as Knowledge Base in 1989, the company has over 35 years of experience delivering engineering software designed by engineers, for engineers.

DroneLabs is a proudly South African, female-owned drone services company delivering premium aerial solutions across the construction, infrastructure, property, agriculture, mining and environmental sectors. Using advanced UAV technology and practical field expertise, the company provides high-quality drone imagery, inspections, mapping, progress monitoring, and data capture services that enhance visibility, improve safety, reduce risk, and support informed decision-making.

Civil Designer provides a fully integrated platform for terrain modelling, roads, earthworks, water, sewer and stormwater network design, enabling efficient workflows from survey data through to final construction drawings. Used by consulting engineers, municipalities and infrastructure authorities worldwide, Civil Designer combines powerful engineering functionality, open workflows, ongoing innovation, and industry-focused support to help professionals design with confidence and efficiency. Representative: Rod Harris or Charles Scott T: +27 (0)87 4056 933 E: info@civildesigner.com W: www.civildesigner.com Stand: 23

DroneLabs also aims to revolutionise infrastructure management and service delivery while developing future talent through its Drone Academy, equipping learners with essential 4IR skills. The company combines innovation, precision, and impact to deliver smart, safe, and sustainable drone-based solutions across South Africa. Representative: Preneshen Moodley T: +27 (0)67 629 0297 E: Preneshen@slb.co.za W: www.dronelabs.co.za Stand: 65 + 84

DENSO SOUTH AFRICA

Denso South Africa (Pty) Ltd, a member of Winn & Coales International, has a well-established manufacturing facility in Durban, which manufactures products for the South African, African, and international export markets. Over the last 90 years, Denso have been creating bespoke and off-theshelf solutions that provide enduring protection against corrosion and chemical attack to buried and exposed pipes, valves, fittings, steelwork, marine structures, tanks and concrete bunded areas. With a number of subsidiary companies worldwide, Winn & Coales (Denso) Ltd is able to draw upon a wealth of experience in producing products to deal with corrosion and sealing problems in many different environments. From subzero environments to extreme high temperatures, our range of products are capable of withstanding the toughest conditions, as well as proving to be costeffective and maintenance free for several years. All the products comply with the strict quality standards of ISO 9001:2015 (quality management standard). The sharing of knowledge and new technology, plus extensive R&D facilities, enables the company to maintain its policy of producing high-quality, effective products around the world, backed by prompt and efficient service. Representative: Divan Geyer T: +27 (0)11 704 7685 E: divan@denso.co.za W: www.denso.co.za Stand: 29

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

ENGINEERING COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA

The Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) is a statutory body established in terms of the Engineering Profession Act (EPA), 46 of 2000. ECSA's primary role is the regulation of the engineering profession in terms of this Act. Its core functions are the accreditation of engineering programmes, registration of persons as professionals in specified categories, and the regulation of the practice of registered persons. ECSA is the only body in South Africa that is authorised to register engineering professionals and bestow the use of engineering titles, such as Pr Eng, Pr Tech Eng, Pr Techni Eng, Pr Cert Eng, on persons who have met the requisite professional registration criteria. ECSA’s vision is to thrive to be an effective regulator assuring engineering excellence and the Council seeks to achieve this vision through: • Determining engineering standards for education, accreditation, and registration. • Registration of Engineering practitioners. • Developing and sustaining a relevant, transformed, competent and internationally recognized engineering profession as well as practice standards. • Enforcing compliance with education, training, registration, continuing education and professional practice standards. • Maintaining a competent workforce, efficient and adequate governance structures and systems. • Educating the public on expected engineering quality standards and protecting the interests of the public against sub-standard quality of engineering work. • Regulatory efforts to ensure environmental protection; and • Engaging with Government to support national priorities including transformation of the engineering profession. • Instituting collaborative efforts with ECSA stakeholders with a view to enhancing ECSA offerings. ECSA is under the leadership of Mr Thembinkosi Madikane, Pr. Eng (President), Ms Marcia Maidi, Pr. Eng (Vice President) and Ms Tabisa Mtati (Acting Chief Executive Officer). T: +27 (0)11 607 9500 E: ecsa-comms@ecsa.co.za W: www.ecsa.co.za Stand: 7

IMESA

EDAMS TECHNOLOGY – A DIVISION OF HYDRO-COMP ENTERPRISES

EDAMS Technology is an International Information Technology Company specialising in designing, developing and supporting industry specific, extensively functional, and parameterised, fully integrated management systems, committed to solving critical Water and Energy infrastructure challenges for Utilities, Municipalities and Government Departments. EDAMS Products encompass best business practices and engineering methods, integrating the commercial, technical, and planning functions enabling our customers to meet their clients' needs, enhance performance, cost efficiency and sustainability. The company’s Head Office is in Cyprus with offices in South Africa, Botswana, Egypt and America. Operations in 3 diverse regions, with over 1,000 active users across 5 vertical industries (Water & Sanitation / Solar Industry / Electricity Distribution / Municipalities / Government). Representative: Mapula Aphane T: +27 (0)11 234 9404 E: mapula@edams.co.za W: www.edams.com Stand: 63

ENVIROSAN SANITATION SOLUTIONS

Envirosan Sanitation Solutions is a Level 2 B-BBEE black-owned enterprise that provides a turnkey solution for the research, development, manufacturing and installation/construction of a comprehensive range of safe, dignified and sustainable water-efficient sanitation solutions to rural and peri-urban schools and households. With more than two million toilets successfully delivered and installed worldwide since our inception in 2006, Envirosan continuously strives to not only meet but exceed our customers’ expectations. Representative: Stewart Smetherham T: +27 (0)31700 1866 E: stewart@envirosan.co.za W: www.envirosan.co.za Stand: 22

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

ERWAT

HALL LONGMORE

Excellence in Water Care

Hall Longmore can trace its history to 1924 and is now owned by the South Africa-based Barnes Group of Companies.

ERWAT provides bulk wastewater conveyance and treatment to industries and over 4.2 million people, operating 19 Water Care Works that discharges 700–1000 Mℓ treated effluent daily. Its Scientific Services offer ISO/IEC 17025 accredited testing. In the recent Green Drop awards, ERWAT was awarded six of only fourteen national awards, thereby obtaining 43% of all GD awards in South Africa. ERWAT further scored gold, silver, and bronze awards for the three best wastewater systems in South Africa. ERWAT is a leader in sustainable water care and water resource recovery, committed to delivering high-quality, environmentally responsible, and affordable services, through smart and innovative technologies.

Representative: Mpho Ntsekhe T: +27 (0)11 929 7000 E: Mpho.ntsekhe@erwat.co.za W: www.erwat.co.za Stand: 47-48

To better position the company in terms of BBBEE requirements, Hall Longmore Steel Solutions and Hall Longmore Infrastructure were formed, with solutions catering for the local pipe retail market and Infrastructure involved in Southern African infrastructure development projects. Hall Longmore is recognized worldwide as a leader in the manufacture of electric resistance welded (ERW) and spiral welded (H-SAW) steel pipe and casings. Hall Longmore’s products are used in a wide range of applications including the transportation of raw and potable water, gas and petrochemicals, slurries and tailings, piling, structural fabrication and solar installations. Representative: Callum Storar T: +27 (0)11 874 7315 E: callum.storar@hall-longmore.co.za W: www.hall-longmore.co.za Stand: 61

GORMAN-RUPP AFRICA

GLS CONSULTING

When you choose Gorman-Rupp, you benefit from worldwide service centers, knowledgeable engineers, and a selection of nearly 3,000 pumps. GormanRupp has been manufacturing pumps and pumping systems since 1933.

Founded in 1989, GLS Consulting has been at the forefront of innovation in the infrastructure modelling software industry. Our expertise includes master planning of water, sewer, electricity and fibre networks using our inhouse developed software such as Wadiso, Sewsan, Swift, Edisan and Fonis. Our flagship software has revolutionised infrastructure planning, modelling and analysis. With over three decades of experience, GLS has built a strong reputation and proudly serve many clients across Southern Africa and internationally, delivering cutting-edge solutions that drive progress and efficiency in civil and electrical engineering projects. We strive for excellence and plan on expanding our innovative solutions across the globe. Representative: Kgothatso Tshikane T: +27(0)21 880 0388 E: info@gls.co.za / Kgothatso.Tshikane@gls.co.za W: www.gls.co.za Stand: 74

Many of the innovations introduced by Gorman-Rupp have become industry standards. Gorman-Rupp offers pump types: Self-Priming Centrifugal, Standard Centrifugal, Submersible, Rotary Gear, Priming Assisted, Hydraulic Piston, Engine-Driven Diaphragm, Packaged Life Stations, and Pressure Booster Stations. Gorman-Rupp has over one million square feet of the most modern manufacturing and warehousing facilities globally. Pump trailer Rental services are available for by-passing, over-pumping and various other applications As we continue to provide pumps and pumping systems to customers around the globe, we never lose sight of the original philosophy that started our company: INNOVATION, IMPROVEMENT, AND SUPERIOR PRODUCTS. Representative: Peet van Zanden T: +27 (0)21 552 6036 E: Peet.vanZanden@gormanrupp.com W: www.grpumps.co.za Stand: 16

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

HERRENKNECHT AG

HONEYWELL TECHNOLOGIES

Herrenknecht is a technology and market leader in the area of mechanised tunnelling systems. Herrenknecht is the only company worldwide to deliver tunnel boring machines for all ground conditions and in all diameters - ranging from 0.10 m to 1 9 m - and continues to make inroads into the South African market, especially on the municipal level. The product range includes tailormade machines for traffic, supply and disposal tunnels, technologies for trenchless pipeline installations, as well as drilling equipment for vertical and inclined shafts and deep drilling rigs.

Honeywell Technologies is a global, pure-play automation company with a legacy of innovating to help solve the world's most mission-critical challenges, enhancing the quality of life for people and communities around the world. We serve the building, industrial, and process sectors with a broad portfolio of services, solutions, and products, underpinned by our Honeywell Technologies Accelerator operating system and Honeywell Technologies Forge intelligence layer. By combining the deep domain expertise of our more than 50,000 employees with decades of data from our global installed base, we are uniquely positioned to lead the industrial sector's transition from automation to autonomy. For more news and information on Honeywell Technologies, please visit Honeywell Technologies Newsroom.

Under the umbrella of the Herrenknecht Group, a team of innovative specialists has formed to provide integrated solutions around tunnel construction with project-specific equipment and service packages upon request. Representative: Swen Weiner T: +49 7824 302 0 E: info@herrenknecht.com W: www.herrenknecht.com Stand: 59 + 62

HEWI AFRICA

Delivering innovative solutions for Africa’s water, infrastructure, agricultural, and industrial sectors, we combine technical expertise with high-quality engineered products that improve efficiency, sustainability, and long-term performance. Serving clients across the continent, we support water and wastewater treatment, cooling, agriculture, and environmental applications with practical, reliable solutions tailored to local conditions. From municipal treatment works to industrial facilities and agricultural operations, our team provides responsive support and industry expertise at every stage of a project. Our focus is simple: helping customers achieve operational efficiency, environmental compliance, and lasting value through proven technologies designed for African challenges. Representative: Kgaugelo Phaleng T: +27 (0)78 748 5692 E: kg@hewi-africa.co. za W: www.hewi-africa.co.za Stand: 64

Representative: Mike Phillips T: +27 (0)60 798 8480 E: Mike.phillips@honeywell.com W: www.honeywell.com/us/en Stand: 70

IDEXX LABORATORIES

IDEXX water testing solutions are approved or accepted by regulatory agencies in over 40 countries, protecting billions of people daily, delivering easy, rapid, accurate and cost-effective information on water quality to laboratories and public utilities. IDEXX products include Colilert® (ISO 9308-2 Method) and Enterolert-DW (ISO 7899-3 Method) for the testing of coliforms and E. coli and Enterococci in water. IDEXX Automated ‘laboratory in a box’ TECTA technology for E. coli, Faecal Coliform and Enterococci in the water, offering real time results between 2 – 16 hours, ideal for wastewater analysis. IDEXX tests can be carried out easily with minimal training. Representative: Tshepo Morwatshehla T: +27 (0)67 338 5202 E: Tshepo-Morwatshehla@idexx.com W: www.idexx.com/water Stand: 75

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

IKHUBA HOLDINGS

IMQS SOFTWARE

Established in 2012, Ikhuba Holdings is a proudly South African and 100% black-owned civil engineering, infrastructure development, and construction solutions enterprise. Named after the traditional implement used to till the earth and break ground, Ikhuba builds durable foundations for communities across Southern Africa.

For over 26 years, IMQS has leveraged the power of ever-evolving modern technology to optimise the delivery of infrastructure-based services in both the public and private sector.

Operating across municipal/public and non-public sectors, Ikhuba delivers end-to-end engineering excellence across the full project lifecycle – from feasibility, master planning, and detailed design to procurement administration and construction monitoring. Our core competencies focus on Water & Sanitation, Municipal Roads & Stormwater Management, and Structural & Commercial Infrastructure. Representative: Khaya Buthelezi T: +27 (0)71 411 2662 E: Khaya.buthelezi@ikhubaholdings.com W: `www.ikhubaholdings.com Stand: 27

IMIESA PUBLICATIONS

IMIESA is the official magazine of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA) and is the definitive publication on public infrastructure. It has been in circulation since 1976 and is published by IMESA (Pty) Ltd. The magazine reaches IMESA members as well as decision-makers across all related engineering and built environment disciplines within the construction industry. This provides the ideal business-to-business interface for both readers and advertisers. Our content is published on different platforms to organically maximise our reach. In addition to our websites, these include: • Print and digital versions of the magazine, which is published ten times a year. • Digital newsletters. • Webinars, videos and e-learning. • Communication via social media. The digital version of IMIESA magazine is fully downloadable, shareable and hyperlinked, which extends our audience beyond the confirmed distribution statistics. Your message is delivered on a platform that is optimally formatted to both desktop and mobile devices.

IMQS provides advice and implementation support on fit-for-purpose and scalable solutions, underpinning improvement in management practice in operations, planning and strategy development. Core competencies include physical and financial asset management, information technology, data management and analytics, change management and training. The company leverages a network of strategic partners that extend the reach into clients in a range of industries and geographies. Representative: Sheminé Adams T: +27 (0)21 880 2712 E: shemine.adams@imqs.co.za W: www.imqs.co.za Stand: 1

INDLELA CONSULTANTS

Indlela Consultants (Pty) Ltd is a water treatment chemicals manufacturing company based in Rosslyn. The company manufactures organic and inorganic coagulants. Indlela’s ACS range of formulated coagulants is NSF approved and the products are widely used by municipalities and water boards throughout Southern Africa. In addition, Indlela offers chlorine gas and a range of oxidizing biocides in liquid, tablet and granular form. Indlela manufactures according to ISO 9000,14000 and 18000. View the website at www.indlelasa.com or call Robertson on 082 307 2544.

Managing Editor: Alastair Currie C: +27(0)82 491 5759 E: alastair@infraprojects.co.za W: www.imesa.org.za

Representative: Robertson Phiri T: +27 (0)82 307 2544 E: robertsonp@indlelasa.com W: www.indlelasa.com Stand: 33 + 34

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

JOAT CONSULTING

KALABAS

JOAT is a South African water sector consulting and engineering company with 18 years' experience delivering innovative water management solutions. Operating across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape.

Kalabas (Pty) Ltd is a South African water treatment infrastructure company headquartered in Glenharvie, Gauteng. The Calabash was invented by engineer Graeme Taylor, with over 30 years of water infrastructure experience, Kalabas was established to close the gap between the speed the market needs and the pace conventional infrastructure delivers.

JOAT specialises in Non-Revenue Water (NRW), Water Conservation and Water Demand Management (WC/WDM), smart water metering, advanced pressure management, leak detection, hydraulic modelling and utility optimisation. The company pairs practical field experience with advanced digital and artificial intelligence technologies, helping clients reduce water losses, improve operational efficiency and achieve measurable, sustainable outcomes. JOAT proudly represents leading global brands including ABB, Sensus, Siemens, Hexing, FIDO Tech, AVK, Cla-Val, Singer and i2O.

The company's flagship product, the Calabash, is a utility-scale modular treatment system that integrates seven process stages into a single engineered module – deployable in weeks. Served across twelve industries including municipalities, mining, and data centres. IFME Gold Award winner, Construction, Helsinki 2026. NSTF-TIA finalist, 2025/2026. Commercial model: Lease, Operate, Maintain.

Representative: Nangamso Nogemane T: +27 (0)31 700 1177 E: Nangamso.Nogemane@joat.co.za W: www. Joat.co.za Stand: 11

KABE CONSULTING ENGINEERS

Representative: Anthea Vorster | Faith Galate T: +27 (0)64 525 6339 | +27 (0)79 644 3379 E: Marketing@kalabas.com | Faithg@kalabas.co.za W: www.kalabas.com Stand: 31

KMSD ENGINEERING CONSULTANTS

KABE Consulting Engineers is a premier, Level 1 B-BBEE and ISO 9001:2015 certified civil engineering and project management firm established in 2005. Operating across South Africa and the wider SADC region, we specialize in the investigation, planning, design, and implementation of sustainable municipal infrastructure. Our expertise spans township services, roads, stormwater systems, water, and sanitation, with a dedicated emphasis on developing affordable, resilient solutions. Aligned with the IMESA 2026 theme, "Blueprints Reimagined Judiciously," we partner with public sectors and emerging contractors to build a united African future. Visit our stand No: 66 to explore innovative engineering collaborations. Representative: Mpho Malefane T: +27 (0)87 809 0982 or +27 (0)68 032 2700 E: mphom@kabe.co.za W: www.kabe.co.za Stand: 66

IMESA

KMSD Engineering Consultants (Pty) Ltd is a Level 1 BBBEE multidisciplinary consulting engineering firm established in 2009 and is ISO 9001: 2015 accredited. Our core expertise in the civil engineering field is in water & sanitation, roads & stormwater, structural engineering, human settlements projects and project management. Our vision is to be a company of choice for our clients by providing agile technology and execution excellence within the built environment whilst our mission is to serve our stakeholders with the highest degree of eminence, proficiency and integrity whilst maintaining a risk-based thinking. Representative: Yolanda Molefe T: +27 (0)87 940 3119 | +27 (0)81 349 2517 E: yolanadam@kmsd.co.za W: www.kmsd.co.za Stand: 56

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

KUFANIKIWA CONSULTING

LVSA VALVES

Kufanikiwa Consulting is a South African Engineering Consulting Firm providing innovative, practical, and sustainable solutions across project management, electrical and mechanical , structural , water and sanitation, and transportation engineering.

LVSA Valves (Pty) Ltd is a proudly South African valve manufacturer delivering tailored solutions to meet the unique requirements of clients across various industries.

We combine multidisciplinary technical expertise with a strong focus on quality, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and long-term value. Working collaboratively with our clients, we deliver fit-for-purpose infrastructure solutions designed to meet evolving needs and create lasting impact. As a Black-owned, Level One B-BBEE firm, we are committed to transformation, social responsibility, and inclusive development. Through our work, we contribute to resilient infrastructure, economic growth, and stronger communities across South Africa. Representative: Pumla Nyanda T: +27 (0)71 402 2151 E: pumla@kufanikiwa.co.za W: www.kufanikiwa.co.za Stand: 60

LIBER GRIDS

Backed by ISO 9001:2015 certification, we are committed to quality, innovation, and continuous improvement. Our capabilities include valve modification and refurbishment, on-site valve installation, spool manufacturing for valve chambers, engineering support, project and inventory management, and technical support for contracts and EPC projects. By reviewing system requirements and assisting with valve selection, we help clients maximize performance, reliability, and operational efficiency while providing cost-effective solutions and exceptional service. Representative: Vevan Govender T: +27 (0)31 054 7650 E: vevan@lvsavalves.co.za W: www.lvsavalves.co.za Stand: 2

M4A

m4a (Pty) Ltd is a specialist manufacturer of composite and plastics products with a focus on utilities networks and infrastructure markets. LiBER GRIDS, a specialised division of LiBER CIVILS, redefines urban infrastructure with smart, resilient stormwater solutions. Our patented, flush-by-design system eliminates the pervasive "klak-klak" noise of traditional drainage by neutralising the physical gaps that cause rattle and structural wear. Engineered for security, our grids feature a proprietary lock-down mechanism with tamper-proof sheer-nuts, rendering assets entirely theftproof. Backed by an industry-leading 25-year structural guarantee and ISO 9001/SABS certifications, we provide municipalities and developers with quiet, high-performing infrastructure. Visit stands 49 & 50 to see the engineering behind the silence. Representative: Sashalee Cloete T: 010 157 3843 E: marketing@libergrids.co.za W: www.libergrids.co.za Stand: 49 + 50

In-house design, tool making, and our various manufacturing capabilities, provide end-to-end development, manufacture and supply of solutions to the client. m4a complies with global mark and specification schemes and is ISO9001 certified and accredited. Investment into Injection moulding, Compression moulding, and Extrusion technologies make m4a a novel manufacturing enterprise. Since our establishment in 2002, m4a has grown significantly, driven by our dedication to meeting the evolving demands of the civil construction industry. Our locally manufactured infrastructure products are widely approved and accepted by various municipalities across South Africa. By offering composite solutions that surpass traditional materials, we provide durable and sustainable alternatives that meet and exceed industry expectations. In short, we: Innovate, Build and Deliver T: +27 (0)11 903 7023 E: info@m4a.co.za W: www.m4a.co.za Stand: 35

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

MACCAFERRI

Maccaferri is a global leader in engineered solutions for civil, geotechnical and environmental infrastructure with over 140 years of experience. We design and deliver innovative systems for erosion control, soil stabilisation, slope protection, hydraulic works and transport infrastructure. A multinational company with a worldwide presence in more than 130 countries, Maccaferri combines technical expertise, research and on-site support to meet complex engineering challenges. Working with municipalities, engineers and contractors, Maccaferri focuses on sustainable, cost-effective solutions that enhance infrastructure resilience, improve service delivery and address the impacts of urbanisation and climate change worldwide. Representative: Nadeena Le’Tang T: +27 (0)83 657 7033 E: n.letang@maccaferri.com W: www.maccaferri.com/za/ Stand: 17

MACSTEEL FLUID CONTROL

Macsteel Fluid Control is a trusted supplier of advanced water infrastructure, and pipeline solutions throughout Southern Africa. The Company offers a comprehensive portfolio of products, including Victaulic mechanical piping systems, Bermad Control Valves, air Valves, Amiad Filtration Systems, general valves, actuators; and engineered pipe systems for municipal, industrial and infrastructure applications. Complementing its product offering, Macsteel manufactures TOSAWRAP corrosion protection systems and TOSA Blankets for long – term pipeline and joint protection in demanding environments. With a commitment to quality, technical excellence, and customer service, Macsteel delivers innovative, reliable, and cost-effective solutions that support the efficient management and distribution of water and other critical fluids. Representative: Adriaan Kruger T: +27 (0)82 557 2185 E: Adriaan.kruger@macsteel.co.za W: www.macsteel.co.za Stand: 25 + 26

MAGALIES WATER

Vision: To be the leading provider of quality water and sanitation services in Southern Africa. Mission: To provide sustainable, safe and reliable quality bulk water, sanitation and other related services to Water Services Authorities and other users to positively impact the quality of life and economic growth for communities in our area of operation. Magalies Water as one of eight water boards in the country is mandated to provide bulk water and sanitation services. The Board supplies potable water municipalities, mines and other private consumers in North West, Limpopo and Gauteng provinces. It is also an organ of state reporting to the Minister of Water and Sanitation and utilizes the Pienaars and Crocodile rivers as major catchment areas of raw water. With a total staff compliment of over 700, the entity owns and operates four water treatment plants - Vaalkop (Rustenburg), Klipdrift, Wallmansthal and Cullinan (Pretoria) with the combined capacity of 340Ml/d, as well as a state-of-the-art scientific services laboratory in Brits. Representative: David Magae (Spokesperson) T: +27 (0)82 761 3456 E: davidmag@magalieswater.co.za W: www.magalieswater.co.za Stand: 28

MAVERICK TRADING 59CC

Maverick Trading 59cc is a Cape Town-based leader in advanced polymer concrete manufacturing, supplying superior manhole covers, frames and civil infrastructure products across Africa. Through continuous R&D, the company has expanded its material base from four to twelve specialised raw materials, strengthening product performance and supporting a growing green footprint. All products include UV-stabilisers and can be fitted with patented locking mechanisms, electronic locks and sensor-based tamper detection. With over 100 employees, SANAS approval, fire rating, SABS-aligned testing and Level 1 B-BBEE status, Maverick Trading delivers innovative, secure and reliable solutions backed by 25 years of excellence. Representative: Llewellyn Cloete T: +27 (0)84 525 2690 E: llewellyn@mavericktrading.co.za W: www.mavericktrading.co.za Stand: 43

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

MED-TECHENGINEERS ACADEMY

Med-TechEngineers Academy is a leading provider of accredited engineering and technical skills development, empowering municipalities, utilities, and infrastructure professionals with future-focused training solutions. Our industry-aligned programmes cover Renewable Energy, Energy Performance, Engineering, Occupational Health and Safety, and emerging technologies, delivered through classroom, online, and blended learning. With a strong emphasis on practical application and regulatory compliance, we equip technical teams with the competencies required to design, operate, maintain, and optimise sustainable infrastructure. Partner with Med-TechEngineers Academy to strengthen workforce capability, improve service delivery, drive innovation, and build resilient, future-ready communities across South Africa. Representative: Nomonde Khoza T: +27 (0)73 158 2237 E: nomondek@med-techengineers.com W: www.mteacademy.co.za Stand: 80

METSIWORX

Metsiworx is a South African turnkey engineering solutions company specialising in pumping and fluid-handling systems for municipal, commercial and industrial applications. Our services include engineering design support, pump selection, hydraulic assessments, equipment supply, installation, commissioning, maintenance, condition assessments, performance testing and lifecycle optimisation. As an authorised distributor of Flygt, Lowara, Gorman-Rupp, KSB and Roto Pumps, Metsiworx provides genuine OEM equipment, spares, technical support and after-sales service. Our ECSA-registered electrical, mechanical and fire engineering professionals deliver integrated mechanical, electrical, control and instrumentation solutions. We help clients improve reliability, energy efficiency, compliance and long-term asset performance across water and wastewater infrastructure nationwide. Representative: Theo Wilcox T: +27 (0)72 813 4754 E: theo@metsiworx.com W: www.metsiworx.com Stand: 78

MAKHAOTSE, NARASIMULU & ASSOCIATES (MNA)

Over 26 years, Makhaotse, Narasimulu and Associates (Pty) Ltd, founded in 2000 by Martin Makhaotse and Sagren Narasimulu, has delivered innovative engineering solutions that strengthen communities and shape South Africa’s infrastructure. MNA has become a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy, offering services in four main divisions: Water and Sanitation, Transportation, Buildings, and Integrated Systems Engineering, while developing expertise in various key disciplines within these areas. MNA is a proudly people-centred organisation, committed to uplifting our employees, empowering future leaders, building succession planning and making a meaningful difference in the communities we serve. Succession planning has been a key focus in recent years, culminating in the appointment of 6 new Associates in 2026, which also included the retirement of cofounder Martin Makhaotse. Martin continues to provide ad hoc support to the leadership team, which also includes co-founder and Managing Director Sagren Narasimulu and Executive Directors Nerave Moodley and Agilen Moodley. Representative: Shallona Maharaj T: 010 001 3536 E: smaharaj@mna-sa.co.za W: www.mna-sa.co.za Stand: 44

MPAMOT

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

MS SMART SOLUTIONS

With more than 50 years of combined expertise in all Industries, we provide specialised Smart Solutions to solve our customer needs. We ensure that we partner with Suppliers that are market leaders in their field to ensure Smart Solutions with the latest technology is provided to our customers. Our focus is on providing sustainable Smart Solutions, drawing on experience and new technology not only from within but from our international business partners. This allows our customer to have the latest and best Smart Solutions for any application. Representative: Stephen Scheepers T: +27 (0)82 442 4379 E: stephen@mssmartsolutions.co.za W: www.mssmartsolutions.co.za Stand: 67

NATIONAL ENERGY REGULATOR OF SOUTH AFRICA (NERSA)

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is a regulatory authority established as a juristic person in terms of Section 3 of the National Energy Regulator Act, 2004 (Act No. 40 of 2004). NERSA’s mandate is to regulate the electricity, piped-gas and petroleum pipelines industries in terms of the Electricity Regulation Act, 2006 (Act No. 4 of 2006), Gas Act, 2001 (Act No. 48 of 2001) and Petroleum Pipelines Act, 2003 (Act No. 60 of 2003). The structure of the Energy Regulator consists of nine members, five of whom are part-time and four are full-time, including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The Energy Regulator is supported by personnel under the direction of the CEO. Representative: Lutendo Mabata T: +27 (0)12 401 4674 E: Lutendo.Mabata@nersa.org.za W: www.nersa.org.za Stand: 37

NUWATER SYSTEMS

NATIONAL TREASURY

As South Africa reimagines its infrastructure delivery, greater emphasis must be placed on preserving and optimising existing public assets while strategically investing in new assets. National Treasury’s infrastructure delivery reforms recognise that infrastructure development requires funding and financing from private and public sector investment. The long-term sustainability of infrastructure assets requires the financing, renewal and rehabilitation of existing assets, giving effect to Section 152(1)(b) of the Constitution and aligning seamlessly with the provisions of the Municipal Finance Management Act, that guide sustainable infrastructure investment, financing and lifecycle asset management. Representative: Nobuntu Sibuyi T: +27 (0)72 733 5713 | +27 (0)81 574 6932 E: Nobuntu.Sibuyi@treasury.gov.za W: www.treasury.gov.za Stand: 8

IMESA

NuWater is a leading water and wastewater treatment company that delivers sustainable, innovative, and cost-effective solutions across Africa and international markets. With expertise in desalination, water reuse, industrial water treatment, and municipal wastewater management, NuWater designs, builds, owns, and operates advanced treatment plants tailored to client needs. The company combines cutting-edge technology with engineering excellence to provide reliable access to clean water while supporting environmental sustainability. Serving industries, municipalities, mining operations, and commercial clients, NuWater is committed to addressing global water challenges through efficient resource management, operational excellence, and long-term partnerships that create lasting value for communities and businesses alike. Representative: Othmaan Sity T: +27 (0)21 788 3125 | +27 (0)78 457 7094 E: othmaan@nuwater.com W: www.nuwater.com Stand: 58

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

N & Z INSTRUMENTATION & CONTROL

N&Z Instrumentation & Control specialises in water demand management: Our ‘plug and play’ WaMSS software collects flow, level and water quality data, analyses it and automatically presents actionable information. This turnkey single-supplier solution includes Isoil battery-powered magflow meters, ATI remote battery-powered water quality sensors and FLP4 battery-powered smart loggers. Automatic meter reading (AMR), water balance/water loss and reservoir level management are typical applications of the WaMSS solution. Our on-site services include verification of flow meters, flow surveys, commissioning, maintenance contracts and flow logging. Representative: JP Bosman T: +27 (0)11435 1080 E: jpb@NandZ.co.za W: www.nz.co.za Stand: 42 + 55

OBSCAPE

Obscape delivers rugged, plug-and-play environmental monitoring solutions that provide reliable, real-time data in even the harshest conditions. Designed for autonomous, long-term deployment, its solar-powered and wireless systems are easy to install in remote locations. The portfolio includes wave, water level, current, weather, water quality and time-lapse camera solutions, as well as asset tracking devices. Every system connects to the secure Obscape Data Portal, offering free cloudbased access, remote configuration, alerts and powerful data management tools. From standard products to tailored monitoring solutions, Obscape helps researchers, industries and governments make informed decisions with confidence through dependable environmental data. Representative: Bronwyn Goble T: +27 (0)82 558 0515 E: bronwyn@obscape.com W: www.obscape.com Stand: 54

PPS FOR PROFESSIONALS

In the South African financial services landscape, PPS stands apart with its unique approach. Instead of shareholders, we have members, graduate professionals who are eligible for membership based on their qualifications. Membership provides access to tailored financial solutions, ensuring members benefit directly from the comprehensive cover designed to support their professional and personal needs. Our enduring mutual model, which has demonstrated its resilience through many upheavals over the past 83 years, consistently delivers reliable solutions and services, enabling our members to secure their incomes and generate personal wealth. We allocate annual returns to the notional PPS Profit-Share Accounts™ of members who hold qualifying life-risk products. This ensures that members share directly in the growth and success of PPS, reinforcing our belief that success is better, shared. Representative: Lebohang Raputsoe T: +27 (0)81 349 8185 E: lraputsoe@pps.co.za W: www.pps.co.za Stand: 41

PRO-PLAN CONSULTING ENGINEERS

Pro-Plan Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd is a leading multi-disciplinary engineering company with over 26 years of experience delivering sustainable infrastructure across South Africa, Africa and beyond. We specialise in municipal and regional infrastructure, with expertise across Water, Transportation, Mining, Industrial, Energy, Property and Infrastructure Development. We thrive on large, complex projects where the technical solution, business case, funding model or implementation pathway is not straightforward. Combining technical and commercial expertise, we help clients develop viable, bankable projects and navigate the journey from concept and feasibility through funding and procurement to successful execution, creating lasting economic and social value. Representative: Maretha Marais T: +27 (0)11 954 4441 E: proplan@proplansa.co.za W: www. proplansa. co.za Stand: 12

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

ROMH CONSULTING

SOUTH AFRICAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION (SALGA)

ROMH Consulting is a proudly South African consulting engineering company, rooted in excellence, transformation and inclusive leadership. Founded in 2013, we are Transforming the African Engineering Landscape by delivering positive societal impact, investing in emerging talent, celebrating enduring legacies, and mentoring future leaders. We deliver innovative, sustainable solutions infused with creative modern ideas and a fresh approach, driving efficiency, resilience, and real-world results across multiple sectors. We operate from our head office in Gauteng, with regional presence across South Africa and Namibia. Our team of Professional Engineers, Technical Specialists, and Project Managers excels in Transportation & Traffic Engineering, Civil & Structural Engineering, Water & Sanitation Engineering, Project Management, and Advisory Services. Representative: Nomonde Shabangu T: 010 035 1460 E: nomondes@romh.co.za W: www.romh.co.za Stand: 14

THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERING (SAICE) & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT + PROJECTS (SAICE-PDP)

The South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) is the professional body for civil engineers in South Africa. We promote growth, excellence, and sustainability in the industry. Through our branches, divisions, and committees, we support knowledge sharing and improved engineering practice. SAICE provides members with opportunities for professional development through training and networking. SAICE Professional Development and Projects (SAICE-PDP), a Non-Profit Company founded by SAICE, focuses on growing engineering capacity to strengthen service delivery in South Africa and beyond. SAICE-PDP brings expertise in engineering education, mentoring, technical training, and built environment development through extensive research and implementation. Representative: Sibongile Mamatu or Mmathabo Mokone T: +27 (0)11 805 5947 | +27 (0)11 476 4100 E: sibongile@saice.org.za | mmathabo@saicepdp.org W: www.saice.org.za or www.saicepdp.org Stand: 53

IMESA

SALGA is constitutionally mandated with the responsibility of local government oversight. Its primary role is the ongoing journey of transforming local government to be at the service of the people. Local government must be empowered and have resources that provide the foundation of its critical role – delivering quality services to the people. SALGA’s primary transformation role therefore requires thought leadership that inspires others with realistic innovative ideas for sustainable change through meaningful engagements. Local government’s success is a critical component of achieving South Africa’s development agenda embedded in the National Development Plan (NDP), Vision 2030: Our Future Make it Work. Representative: Valerie Setshedi T: +27 (0)65 947 5910 E: vsetshedi@salga.org.za W: www.salga.org.za Stand: 6

SBS TANKS

SBS Tanks is a global manufacturer of modular, bolted steel water storage tanks, founded in Durban, South Africa, in 1998. With installations across more than 35 countries, SBS provides engineered water storage for municipal, mining, industrial, agricultural, commercial and fire protection applications. Our tank ranges offer capacities from 12,000 litres to 5.2 million litres, with corrosion-resistant Galvalume steel and a design life exceeding 60 years. From engineering and project management to logistics, installation and quality assurance, SBS manages the complete project lifecycle in-house. Backed by ISO 9001 and ISO 45001 certification, our approach combines engineering expertise, quality and dependable water storage. Representative: Jacob Rheeder | Mfundo Ngcobo T: +27 (0)82 440 2666 | +27 (0)82 888 9144 E: jacob@sbstanks.co.za | mfundo@sbstanks.co.za W: www.sbstanks.com Stand: 52

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

SEAPRO SA

SINOWATEK

Seapro SA is Southern Africa’s trusted partner in advanced water control and pressure management solutions.As the exclusive distributor of CLA-VAL control valves in the SADC region, we provide engineered solutions that help municipalities, water boards, utilities, mining operations, and industry improve efficiency, reduce water losses, and protect critical infrastructure.

Established in 2015, Sinowatek specializes in valorising waste streams using advanced technologies. We employ the Fournier Rotary Press® for sludge dewatering and ScaleBuster® for scale and corrosion treatment and prevention as well as the powerful disinfectant Innowatech Anolyte® for water disinfection.

Our locally assembled valve systems combine world-class technology with responsive technical support, training, and after-sales service. From pressure reducing and surge control valves to smart monitoring and flow management solutions, Seapro SA is committed to helping customers build resilient, sustainable water networks that safeguard one of our most valuable resources - water.

Our services include designing, building, procuring, and integrating state-ofthe-art technologies to create tailored processes that enhance environmental and economic performance.

Representative: Debbie Henning T: +27 (0)11 397 1126 E: info@seaprosa.co.za W: www.seaprosa.co.za Stand: 39 + 40

SIKA SOUTH AFRICA

In the municipal sector, we focus on the dewatering of wastewater sludges and the dewatering of sludge produced during sedimentation of potable water. Sinowatek proudly represents Fournier Industries' Rotary Press® technology, the leading sludge dewatering solution from Canada. Representative: Nico Erasmus T: +27 (0)83 271 1808 E: nicoe@sinowatek.com W: www.sinowatek.com Stand: 83

SMARTLOCK

Sika South Africa, established in 1988, is the local subsidiary of the global Sika Group, a world leader in specialty chemicals. With the highest industry accreditations, Sika develops and manufactures systems for waterproofing, bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing, and protecting in the building and automotive sectors. Covering everything from basement to roof and from foundation to finishing, Sika solutions are integral in bridges, dams, roads, high-rise buildings, vehicles, marine vessels, and industrial facilities. Recognised as leaders in the South African market, Sika delivers proven quality, reliability, and sustainability with a comprehensive portfolio that sets the benchmark for performance and durability. Representative: Romaine Cloete T: +27 (0)31 792 6500 E: headoffice@za.sika.com W: www.sika.co.za Stand: 73

SMARTLOCK, founded in 2007, is a leading innovator in smart locking and access management solutions. We take pride in our unique solutions, utilizing our patented technology, know-how, and manufacturing facilities to offer unparalleled capabilities in the following markets: • Utilities • Water • Wastewater & Sewage • Pump Stations & Kiosk Lock-in • Electrical • Fibre Our solutions allow for continuous monitoring of infrastructure, accurate asset management, and efficient access management. It is a real time, centralised monitoring platform, giving a geolocated overview of the entire network. Hourly trend data ensures proactive monitoring of active equipment environment. The SMARTLOCK Solution supports real-time corelated alarm monitoring within the network, offering light, impact, temperature as well as humidity sensing. We are committed to developing and improving solutions to meet customer needs. We supply nationwide, as well as Africa and the international market. Representative: JP Alkema T: +27 (0)74 365 4481 E: jp.alkema@smartlock.net W: www.smartlock.net Stand: 68-69

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

SMEC SOUTH AFRICA

For 75 years, SMEC has built a reputation as a trusted partner on major Transport, Water, Urban and Energy projects around the world. SMEC is committed to positively impact the people, the environment and the clients and communities we serve. As a member of the SJ Group and through our network of global specialists, our teams draw on deep expertise and systems thinking to simplify the complex and deliver integrated engineering solutions across a range of diverse environments. engineering positive change. Representative: Kelly Lewis T: +27 (0)73 557 9444 E: Kelly.lewis@sjgroup.com W: www.smec.com Stand: 76

STEWARTS AND LLOYDS PROJECTS AND CONTRACTS

Stewarts & Lloyds Projects and Contracts (Pty) Ltd was established on 01 August 2022. A subsidiary of Stewarts & Lloyds Holdings, a 123-year established brand and a Level 2 B-BBEE company that is significantly changing the civil and construction projects industry across the nation. We are a certified provider of high-quality branded engineering, civil, mining, water, gas, steel, building construction, hardware, and plumbing materials through a strategically positioned distribution network throughout the Republic of South Africa and other African nations. We offer over 20,000 product lines and fuse strong relationships with technical skills and a deep kinship to our craft. Representative: Desmond Tladinyane T: +27 (0)12 800 9400 or +27 (0)82 704 7138 E: DesmondT@sltrading.co.za W: www.slpc.co.za Stand: 79

IMESA

STRUCTA TECHNOLOGY

PRESTANK, offers sectional water storage tanks that are hygienically safe, cost effective and a reliable way to store water for commercial sectors, private sectors and even for personalised storage. Pre-manufactured storage facilities can be provided for a vast variety of applications and range from 1,500 litres to 4,2 million litres. Choose from temporary or permanent installations. Prestanks are fully customisable, high quality water storage solutions that are manufactured according to SANS guidelines and meet South African Hot Dipped Galvanizing requirements. It facilitates easier handling and transportation over long distances to remote areas. Assembly on site is quickly achieved without the need for sophisticated tooling methods and requires minimum maintenance. CIRCOTANK, has developed a cost effective, aluzinc segmented tank with a liner for rural and industrial application. The tanks are easy to transport and quick to erect without cranes and can be mounted on stands. Liner replacement is possible thus resulting in ease of maintenance and longevity. Tank designs were analysed using state of the art Finite Element methods. Materials and joints were also thoroughly tested so as to bring a reliable and quality product to the market. Circotank is offered in a Maxi-range covering tank sizes of 100,000 litres up to 2 million litres and a Midi range covering a very user-friendly range of 5,000 – 20,000 litres. Representative: Godfrey Mpotu T: +27 (0)16 362 9100 | +27 (0)79 035 6997 E: contracts@structatech.co.za W: www.structatech.co.za | www.circotank.co.za | www.prestank.co.za Stand: 45-46

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

SUPERIOR FILTRATION

THE COUNCIL FOR SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH (CSIR)

SUPERIOR FILTRATION is an Original Equipment Manufacturer that designs, constructs and supplies unique water filters for the municipal sector. Our History Established in Johannesburg in 1984, we expanded internationally in 1985. Today, we operate out of the UK and South Africa, with successful installations across 40+ countries. Our Approach We invest time and energy to understand the process and deliver fit-forpurpose filter solutions. This methodology ensures maximum benefit to our customers. With 40+ years of expertise in designing robust, low-maintenance, automated filters, SUPERIOR FILTRATION helps reduce risk, increase uptime, and cut lifetime costs. Representative: Albert Bam T: +27 (0)82 822 7715 E: albert@superior-filtration.com W: www.superior-filtration.com Stand: 32

The CSIR is a leading scientific and technology research organisation that researches, develops, localises and diffuses technologies to accelerate socioeconomic prosperity in South Africa. The organisation plays a key role in supporting public and private sectors through directed research that is aligned with the country’s priorities, the organisation’s mandate and its science, engineering and technology competences. The NMMF is a facility under the South African DSI, established as part of the SA Research Infrastructure Roadmap (SARIR) and managed by CSIR. The NMMF encompasses a wide array of technologies, techniques, and manufacturing processes aimed at producing low-cost diagnostic devices and sensors. Representative: Masibulele Kakaza T: +27 (0)73 424 7206 E: mkakaza@csir.co.za W: www.csir.co.za Stand: 3

ULTRA CONTROL VALVES

SYNTELL Ultra Control Valves is a specialist South African valve company engineering fluid control solutions built for the harsh realities of African mining and municipal water infrastructure.

Syntell Group is a leading South African technology group delivering innovative solutions that enable smarter, safer and more efficient transport networks and cities. Combining Syntell’s expertise in Intelligent Transport Systems, traffic management, road safety, enforcement and technology-enabled government services with Mikros Group’s specialised traffic monitoring, data collection, weigh-in-motion and traffic engineering solutions, the Group provides integrated, data-driven solutions to municipalities, transport authorities, government and private-sector clients.

Founded and led by Peter Telle (BSc Mech Eng, MBL), active in the industry since 1978, the company operates on a philosophy of "African Survivability" – mechanically robust, "Fit and Forget" hardware that outperforms delicate imported alternatives in dirty, high-pressure conditions. Its range includes the Ratio Reducing Valve for stable high-head pressure dissipation, the locally manufactured Maric Flow Control Valve, and a full suite of check, air and pressure reducing valves. Ultra doesn't just sell valves – it sells engineered solutions, backed by decades of field experience. Representative: Peter Telle T: +27 (0)83 458 8053 E: peter@ultravalves.co.za W: www.utltravalves.co.za Stand: 38

With decades of industry experience, local engineering capability and a strong commitment to innovation, quality and customer service, Syntell Group helps clients optimise mobility, improve road safety, protect infrastructure and make better decisions through reliable technology and actionable data. Representative: Marisa Fortune T: +27 (0)82 828 6792 E: MarisaFortune@syntell.co.za W: www.syntell.co.za Stand: 36

IMESA

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

UMNGENI-UTHUKELA WATER

uMngeni-uThukela Water, a state-owned entity, is one of Africa’s most successful organisations involved in water management and is the largest supplier of bulk potable water in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. uMngeni-uThukela Water (formerly Umgeni Water) is a state-owned entity (SOE), established in 1974. Effective from 01 July 2023, the entity began operating under its new name following the merging of Mhlathuze Water and Umgeni Water to form one entity. The entity provides water and related services to water services institutions and other customers in its gazetted service area of the Province of KwaZuluNatal, and operates in accordance with the Water Services Act (Act 108 of 1997) and the Public Finance Management Act (Act 1 of 1999), amongst others, and is categorised as a National Government Business Enterprise. uMngeni-uThukela Water reports directly to the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), through the Board (Accounting Authority) and through its functionaries, the Chairperson of the Board and the Chief Executive. The Minister of Water and Sanitation is the Executive Authority for Water Boards. For more information visit www.umngeni-uthukela.co.za or email Info@uuw.co.za Representative: Nokuthula Ntaka | Jabu Khumalo T: +27 (0)33 341 1111 | +27 (0)71 079 4937 E: Nokuthula.Ntaka@uuw.co.za W: www.umngeni-uthukela.co.za Stand: 18-21

IMESA

WATER RESEARCH COMMISSION (WRC)

The Water Research Commission (WRC) transforms South Africa’s water challenges into applied research, innovation and practical solutions that advance sustainable water management. Through knowledge dissemination, technology transfer and, where appropriate, the commercialisation of innovations, the WRC bridges the gap between research and implementation to improve socio-economic and environmental outcomes. As the WRC celebrates 55 years of supporting sustainable water futures, it continues to strengthen its role as a trusted catalyst for water innovation, ensuring that research is relevant, responsive and translated into real-world impact for South Africa and beyond through strategic partnerships, evidencebased solutions and knowledge adoption. Representative: Zama Zulu T: +27 (0)81 521 8197 E: zamaz@wrc.org.za W: www.wrc.org.za Stand: 4-5

EXHIBITOR PROFILES

ZUTARI

Zutari is a multinational buildings, infrastructure engineering and advisory firm with a proud legacy of over 90 years across Africa and the Middle East. We partner with clients throughout the infrastructure lifecycle, delivering innovative, digitally enabled solutions from schools to stadiums, dams to bridges. Our multidisciplinary expertise enables us to co-create infrastructure that is technically excellent, socially meaningful, and environmentally responsible, maximising value through advanced engineering principles and a commitment to sustainability. Purpose-led work. From renewable energy to resilient infrastructure, our projects solve real-world challenges. Every day is an opportunity to design with purpose and innovate with intent. People-first culture. We bring together diverse thinkers, creators, and problem-solvers; all driven by a shared commitment to impact. Here, your voice is heard, your growth is supported, and your well-being matters. Connected by design. We connect differently; across disciplines, geographies, and perspectives, to unlock better outcomes. Our collaborative model breaks silos, integrates global expertise, and brings creativity and digital innovation into every stage of the project lifecycle. It's how we deliver real impact, together. Representative: Rozanne Cloete T: +27 (0)72 524 8809 E: rozanne.cloete@zutari.com W: www.zutari.com Stand: 71

IMESA

54 Paper 1: Christa Liebenberg Paper 2: Shawn Johnson Paper 3: Erika Braune Mike Wiese 55 Paper 4: Truman Hardon Roxanne Canny Paper 5: James Hough Theo Kleynhans 56 Paper 6: Samista Jugwanth Yasheen Harrielall Paper 7: Johan Basson Paper 8: Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau

57 Paper 9: Sihle Ndumiso Ngema Paper 10: Mike Greatwood Paper 11: Gerhard Vivier Paper 12: Chris Wilcock 58 Paper 13: Rapheal Bamisaye Paper 14: Anisur Rahman Paper 15: Leonard Balakisten Seelan Rajah 59 Paper 16: Joshua Spooner Ione Loots Paper 17: Leon Grobbelaar Standby 1: Dr Jeremy Biddle 61 Standby 2: Jason Holder Standby 3: George M. Ochieng

SPEAKERS

PAPER 1

PAPER 2

CHRISTA LIEBENBERG

SHAWN JOHNSON

Christa Liebenberg Coaching

Obscape B.V.

Christa Liebenberg holds a B.Sc. in Physical Education, B.Sc. (Hons) in Zoology and an MBA from the University of Stellenbosch, as well as Advanced Coaching (Hons) from the SA College of Applied Psychology.

Shawn Johnson studied applied mathematics at the University of Pretoria before completing a National Certificate in Information Technology: Systems Development. He joined Obscape B.V., a company specialising in environmental monitoring instrumentation and data services, in June 2024 as a support engineer, where a hands-on understanding of the company's instruments and data platform saw him grow quickly into research and development and software engineering roles.

She began her career in 1986 with the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and joined the City of Cape Town in 1989. She progressed through several departments, becoming Director of Parks and Nature Conservation in 2002 and Director City Parks in 2005, overseeing 1,600 staff and budgets exceeding R400 million. In 2008, Christa became Municipal Manager of Bergrivier Municipality and, in 2012, Municipal Manager of Stellenbosch Municipality. Under her leadership, both achieved their first Unqualified Audits, and she became the first female Municipal Manager in the Western Cape. She later served as Director Community Services at Langeberg Municipality before returning to the City of Cape Town in 2018 as Subcouncil Manager, Business Coach and Mentor until January 2026. Christa now works as a full-time Business Coach, helping senior managers navigate difficult decisions, challenging stakeholders and extreme demands. An Associate Certified Coach (ACC), she has over 300 logged coaching hours and more than 30 years’ municipal leadership experience.

For the past year his focus has been flood forecasting: Shawn is the developer of WXI (wxi.info), a community-facing river flood forecasting platform for eThekwini Municipality, built with ICLEI Africa and the University of KwaZuluNatal under the CLARE-funded INACCT Resilience project. The platform pairs low-cost river and rain gauges with global weather model forecasts to deliver hourly water level predictions for flood-prone communities, the subject of the paper he presents at this conference. Away from the keyboard, Shawn is a keen sportsman, running and golf chief among many, though his enthusiasm for golf comfortably outpaces his scorecard, and a self-taught guitarist. This paper marks Shawn's first conference publication, and he looks forward to seeing community-level flood early warning grow across the region.

PAPER 3

ERIKA BRAUNE

MIKE WIESE

AECOM SA

Erika is a professionally registered stormwater engineer at AECOM, specialising in fluvial flood risk assessment, stormwater design and water resource management. Her experience includes hydraulic modelling, flood emergency repair works and stormwater management planning in complex and evolving catchments, with project experience across South Africa and internationally.

Mike is a professional civil engineer at AECOM with 15 years of experience specialising in flood, stormwater, and drainage related projects. He holds a Master's degree in Water Engineering from the University of Stellenbosch and is currently pursuing a part-time PhD in flood hydrology at the same institution.

She holds a BEng and MEng in Civil Engineering, both from Stellenbosch University, where she focused her research on integrated water resource management. Erika served on the SAICE Water Division Committee from 2024 to 2025 and has lectured on water resource management and complex stormwater projects at Stellenbosch University. She received a commendation for Young Engineer of the Year at the 2024 CESA Aon Excellence Awards. Erika enjoys working on projects that contribute to safer and more resilient communities and mentoring engineers on their journey towards professional registration. Outside of engineering, she enjoys hiking, sharing good food and conversation with friends, and exploring her creative side through various artistic pursuits.

IMESA

Mike's passion for advancing flood hydrological and hydraulic solutions is reflected in his extensive project experience across Africa, the Middle East, Australia, and Türkiye. His expertise covers a wide range of projects, from urban stormwater management and flood risk assessments to the design of complex flood mitigation strategies. Beyond his professional work, Mike is a dedicated academic contributor, which includes lecturing at the Flood Hydrology short course at Stellenbosch University and contributing to the National Flood Studies Programme. He is commited to knowledge sharing and shaping the future of flood management in South Africa. Mike's professional drive is balanced by a love for the outdoors, including running and mountain biking. He also enjoys being an "example of what not to do" for his kids.

SPEAKERS

PAPER 4

TRUMAN HARDON

ROXANNE CANNY

eThekwini Municipality

Truman Hardon completed his matric in Inanda, Durban and obtained BSc Engineering (Civil) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He spent the early years of his career in the Consulting Engineering business focusing on structural engineering, water engineering and project management and worked for various consultants namely Goba, Hatch and BPH Engineers.

Roxanne Canny, Pr Eng, is a professionally registered Civil Engineer with over a decade of experience in municipal water infrastructure, specialising in water services planning, design, project delivery and infrastructure management.

He joined the eThekwini Water and Sanitation in 2017 and served in the Planning Branch as Professional Engineer and later Acting Senior Manager Planning for 3 years. Afterwards he moved to Engen Refinery as Senior Manager for Maintenance and Facilities Services and held various senior positions and was promoted to Head of Engen Industrial Hub and a member of the Engen Management Committee. Engen Industrial Hub is a new business formed after the closure of the Engen Refinery. In 2024 he re-joined the eThekwini Water and Sanitation as Senior Manager Water Design. He is passionate about the development engineering professionals and has supported a number of engineers and technologists to obtain professional registration.

She holds BSc and MSc degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and has built her career within eThekwini Municipality’s Water and Sanitation environment. Her experience includes infrastructure project delivery, contract administration, financial management, technical oversight and strategic planning. She has also served as Acting Area Project Manager, providing technical and managerial leadership within a multidisciplinary municipal environment. Roxanne is passionate about institutional improvement, water loss reduction, asset management and sustainable municipal service delivery. She currently serves as Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Branch of the Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA). Passionate about developing young professionals and creating opportunities for women in engineering, Roxanne is committed to sharing practical experience, encouraging innovation and contributing to resilient, sustainable infrastructure and effective municipal service delivery in South Africa.

PAPER 5

JAMES HOUGH

THEO KLEYNHANS

SMEC

James matriculated at Oakdale Agricultural High School in Riversdale, where his practical, hands-on approach to problem-solving was developed. He graduated from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology with a National Diploma in Civil Engineering in 2011, followed by a BTech in Civil Engineering, specialising in Construction Management, from the University of South Africa in 2016.

Theo graduated as a civil engineer from Rand Afrikaans University (now UJ) in 2002, and started his career with Stewart Scott Inc, where his love for water related engineering was honed. Since graduating, he performed the duties of resident engineer, design engineer, project manager, contract manager, departmental head and general manager in various consulting firms. He also spent several years as a lecturer at UJ Civil Engineering Faculty. He is currently strengthening his technical skillsets as a Technical Principal in the Water Infrastructure department of SMEC South Africa.

Registered with ECSA as a Professional Engineering Technologist, James is a member of IMESA and SAICE and serves on the SAICE Southern Cape Branch Committee. His career began in construction, where he gained valuable site experience in roads, pipelines, sewer infrastructure, bulk earthworks and municipal services. He progressed into site engineering, construction monitoring and Resident Engineer and Employer’s Agent roles, gaining experience on both the contractor and engineering sides. James is now a Senior Technologist in SMEC South Africa’s Roads and Highways Division in George. His work includes project management, design, procurement, technical assessments and delivery of municipal infrastructure projects covering roads, stormwater, water, sewer and wastewater treatment works. Outside work, he enjoys mountain biking, hiking, adventure racing and quality time with his family.

He thrives on “problem” projects where “integrated, left field solutions” are required and has left his mark on small and mega multi-disciplinary projects in Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Ghana, Zambia, South Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Fiji, Australia and South Africa. The projects include master planning, work on large state-owned and small privately owned dams, river abstraction, borehole development and reticulation, water treatment (conventional and ultra-filtration), bulk water transmission and reservoirs, urban reticulation design, water conservation demand and leakage management, stormwater, sewerage reticulation and outfalls, sewage treatment, pumpstations and contract management. As husband and father of three daughters, he has limited spare time, however when the opportunity arises, he enjoys landscape and wildlife photography, the creation of bonsai and has recently started with stain glass windows. He is extremely fond of the outdoors, wide-open spaces and fly-fishing (or as his youngest says – waving his wand at the fishes).

IMESA

SPEAKERS

PAPER 6

SAMISTA JUGWANTH

YASHEEN HARRIELALL

Zutari

Samista is a professionally registered engineer, Technical Director, and futurist with 17 years of experience spanning strategy, planning, design, and implementation. She specialises in water infrastructure, having worked across the full water, wastewater, and stormwater cycle on projects for public and private sector clients across Africa and the Middle East.

Yasheen Harrielall studied Computer Science and Information Systems at the University of KwaZuluNatal and later completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Management Practices at Henley Business School Africa.

Her work sits at the intersection of engineering and strategic foresight. She is passionate about how systems thinking and digital capability can strengthen infrastructure planning and delivery in order to create solutions that are technically sound and future-ready. She is an active contributor to the global futures community through facilitation, publications, and podcasts, and serves as a final-year examiner and Industry Advisory Board Member for Civil Engineering at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is an alumna of both the Association of Professional Futurist’s Emerging Fellows Programme and the Swedish Institute’s Global Executive Programme, an international programme focused on sustainability, governance and transformative change. She is also a Fellow of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, a distinction awarded to professionals recognised by their peers for eminence within the profession.

He began his career at Accenture in South Africa, where he specialised in digital strategy and target operating model design, helping large organisations rethink how their technology functions were structured and run. In 2022 he moved to Accenture in the United Kingdom, advising international companies on largescale transformation and technology strategy. Across more than eleven years he has worked at the intersection between business and technology, building a reputation for turning complex digital problems into clear, workable plans. In July 2025 Yash returned to South Africa to join Zutari as Director of Strategic Growth and Partnerships. Digital Advisory is a nascent offering within the firm, and he leads the definition of the capability and its services, shaping them to deliver real value for engineering and infrastructure clients across South Africa, the wider continent and the Middle East. Away from work, Yash thoroughly enjoys switched-off time with family and friends and is an avid Formula 1 fan.

PAPER 7 JOHAN BASSON SMEC

PAPER 8 VHUHWAVHO PERTUNIA MUDAU Vaal University of Technology

Johan matriculated at Paul Roos Gymnasium and graduated at the Stellenbosch University as engineer. He also obtained a Commerce degree and worked in the National, Provincial and Local Government sectors before moving to the private sector and is currently employed at SMEC. His career spans working bases in Pretoria, Cape Town, Grahamstown, Oudtshoorn, George and Stellenbosch. He has worked on various national and international projects spanning different continents. He is passionate about making a difference in communities in the provision of infrastructure, especially municipal. His track record to give back to the industry through involvement at student level at universities, mentoring young engineers, providing guidance and expertise to large projects and master planning, managing a successful team and involvement as member of IMESA EXCO shows his commitment. He enjoys taking projects through all the stages from inception, planning, design to construction to transfer and maintenance. He enjoys the outdoors, sport and music. He plays golf and hiking in nature and is a long-standing member of the Stellenbosch Schola Cantorum choir. He is happily married and proud father and grandfather and enjoys quality family life.

IMESA

Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau is a Professional Scientist registered with SACNASP, an engineering academic, and a researcher with over eight years of experience in engineering, academia, and research. She holds a Diploma in Mine Safety, a BSc in Geology, an Honours in Geohydrology, a Master’s in Geotechnical Engineering (Cum Laude), and a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of South Africa. Her career spans consultancy, geoscience, and higher education, having worked with Murara Environmental Consultants, the Council for Geoscience, the University of South Africa, the Vaal University of Technology, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She has contributed extensively to curriculum development, teaching, postgraduate supervision, geoscience investigations and mine closure, with a strong emphasis on industry-responsive engineering education. Her research focuses on sustainable construction materials, low-carbon engineering, waste valorisation, geotechnical applications, sustainable mining, and the integration of 4IR technologies into engineering education. Passionate about advancing innovative, digitally responsive, and sustainable engineering practices, she is committed to preparing future engineers to address real-world challenges and contribute to national development.

SPEAKERS

PAPER 9

PAPER 10

SIHLE NDUMISO NGEMA

MIKE GREATWOOD

Naidu Consulting

Independent Consultant & former Municipal Engineering Head

Sihle Ndumiso Ngema, Pr Eng, is a civil engineer with more than 14 years’ experience in the planning, design, management and delivery of roads and highways infrastructure in South Africa. He currently serves as Sector Manager for Roads & Highways at Naidu Consulting, where his responsibilities include technical and project leadership, geometric design, contract administration, businessunit planning, quality management and the development of engineering staff. His professional experience spans municipal, provincial and national road infrastructure and includes geometric design, stormwater drainage, earthworks, road rehabilitation and upgrading, tender documentation, construction-stage support and contract administration. Sihle holds a BSc Eng in Civil Engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and is registered as a Professional Engineer with the Engineering Council of South Africa. He also serves as an ECSA reviewer and assessor for professional registration applications, contributing to the assessment of engineering practitioners seeking professional registration. He is currently pursuing a research-based Master’s degree in Engineering Management at Stellenbosch University, where his research examines operations strategy and the effects of competitive bidding and procurementrelated regulatory pressures on consulting engineering firms.

PAPER 11

Mike Greatwood PrEng FIMESA is a Senior Municipal Water Engineer with 39 years in South Africa’s water sector. He is acknowledged as one of the most seasoned experts in water supply, sanitation, infrastructure rehabilitation, and water governance. He spent nearly forty years in Msunduzi Municipality’s Water and Sanitation Unit, including nine as Water Services Authority Manager, leading drought management, pollution control, master planning, tariff reform and operational stabilisation in a complex KwaZulu-Natal service environment. Mike retired in 2022 but now serves as Senior Technical Adviser to the Municipal Manager of Msunduzi, guiding the municipality’s turnaround, NRW reduction, Section 78 assessments, licensing-readiness and climaterisk planning. His role has enhanced stability and made Msunduzi a provincial leader in water-sector reform. Between 2024 and 2026, Mike authored influential papers on professionalisation, licensing, tariff reform, lifecycle costing, rural capacity collapse, labour dynamics and water-sector governance. Municipalities and partners like the World Bank, SALGA, and DBSA often reference his experience. He is a Fellow of IMESA and a committed mentor to younger engineers and financial practitioners, encouraging them to document their experiences and contribute to the sector’s long-term institutional memory.

PAPER 12

GERHARD VIVIER City of Cape Town

CHRIS WILCOCK

Gerhard Vivier, Pr Eng, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Stellenbosch University and has been registered as a Professional Engineer with ECSA since 1990. With more than 40 years’experience in the built environment, he has held senior leadership and technical roles for consultants, contractors and public-sector clients across South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.

WSSA

His career spans the infrastructure delivery lifecycle, including planning, design, procurement, construction, operations and maintenance of complex multidisciplinary programmes. He has served as Director, Team Leader, Project and Programme Manager, Design Manager, Procurement Manager, Construction Manager and Operations & Maintenance Specialist, with extensive experience in projects funded by local and international institutions. In 2019, Gerhard established the Engineering Management Branch within the City of Cape Town, leading approximately 30 professional engineers and quantity surveyors. Following his retirement in May 2025, he was appointed Specialist Advisor: Built Environment Professionalisation, leading the City’s professionalisation programme. Gerhard is passionate about technical governance, professional registration and developing capable municipalities able to deliver safe, resilient and sustainable infrastructure.

After 10 years in construction in the Eastern Cape, Chris sought respite from contracting life and joined the then Queenstown Municipality’s Town Engineer’s Department in 1990. Progressing to Deputy Town Engineer, he completed his municipal career as Section 57 Senior Manager of Lukhanji Projects, one of the country’s first PMUs, at what became Lukhanji Local Municipality. His team implemented projects spanning low-cost housing, electrification, township services, water and wastewater, roads, strategic plans and financial turnaround plans. He also gained procurement experience drafting the Lukhanji Supply Chain Policy and serving on local and district Bid Adjudication Committees. After 15 years, Chris joined a private water company and helped establish MaP Water, a water entity in the Free State, before moving to the WSSA Group’s Johannesburg head office. Inspired by Administrative Law courses presented by Advocate Jan Koekemoer, Chris completed an LLB and an LLM in Public Procurement Law. Now past retirement age, he remains passionate about procurement and service delivery, serving as internal counsel and heading the group’s publicsector tendering department.

IMESA

SPEAKERS

PAPER 13 RAPHEAL TEMITAYO BAMISAYE

PAPER 14 ANISUR RAHMAN Officine Maccaferri S.p.A., Italy

Stellenbosch University Rapheal T. Bamisaye is a civil engineer and pavement engineering researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. His work focuses on sustainable road infrastructure and the responsible use of recycled construction materials, particularly recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) in pavement applications. His current research examines how RCA from different sources varies in its engineering properties, and what this variability means for material characterisation and pavement performance. By linking laboratory evidence with practical engineering requirements, he aims to support effective use of recycled materials in road construction. Rapheal holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Geotechnical Engineering. His experience includes pavementmaterial testing, slope stability, geotechnical analysis and civil engineering practice. He has also supported undergraduate teaching at Stellenbosch University as a Learning Assistant and Academic Assistant, helping students engage with technical concepts and engineering problem-solving.

Anisur Rahman is a Business Developer for the Double Twist (DT) Business Unit at Officine Maccaferri S.p.A., based in Bologna, Italy. He is responsible for business development and the promotion of Maccaferri's DT solutions, providing strategic and techno-commercial support to Regional Sales Managers. A Civil Engineering graduate from the University of Bologna, Anisur has spent over 13 years with Maccaferri in technical sales and business development roles across Europe, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. His expertise includes double twisted wire mesh solutions for slope stabilization, erosion control, hydraulic engineering, and infrastructure protection. Having worked extensively in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Indonesia, he has developed strong international market knowledge and project coordination experience. Anisur is currently completing an Executive MBA at Bologna Business School.

His broader interests include pavement materials, sustainable road construction and geotechnical engineering.

PAPER 15

LEONARD BALAKISTEN

SEELAN RAJAH

SLB Corporation

Leonard Balakisten is a professional engineering technologist, entrepreneur and business leader with more than three decades of built-environment experience. A graduate of M.L. Sultan and Natal Technikon, he holds a Master’s Diploma in Technology and is professionally registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa.

Seelan Rajah is a professionally registered engineering technologist and Director at SLB Consulting Engineers, with more than 20 years of experience in civil engineering, municipal infrastructure delivery and multidisciplinary project leadership.

His engineering career began in 1988 with CBI Consulting Engineers, DEC Engineers and Maharaj & Freeman Consulting Engineers before he established his own business. In 1998, he became Director of SLB Consulting, leading engineering, infrastructure, housing and project-management assignments across South Africa. His experience includes roads, stormwater systems, water and sewer reticulation, housing infrastructure and large-scale community development programmes, including projects in Cornubia, Lamontville, Umzinto and Mount Moriah. Today, Leonard is Founder and Director of SLB Corporation, incorporating SLB Consulting, GAP Developments, DroneLabs and Shadow Trans Logistics. His interests span engineering, property development, logistics, aviation and emerging technology. Through DroneLabs, he has driven the Group’s expansion into unmanned aviation, drone technology and technologyenabled infrastructure solutions, including a dedicated drone academy for professional pilot training and skills development. Leonard remains focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and building SLB Corporation’s future.

IMESA

His expertise spans infrastructure planning, construction oversight, technical governance, stakeholder coordination and the delivery of housing and civil engineering programmes across public- and private-sector environments. He has contributed to roads, stormwater, water and sewer reticulation, township services, housing infrastructure and community development projects, including initiatives in Cornubia, Ntuzuma, Lamontville and other municipal areas. His professional portfolio includes strategic project planning, progress and performance assessment, budget oversight, procurement support, technical submissions, meeting governance and executive reporting. Seelan is recognised for translating complex technical and project information into clear, decision-ready outputs that support executive review, stakeholder engagement and informed project delivery. He remains committed to professional excellence, innovation and sustainable infrastructure outcomes, with a particular interest in the application of drones, LiDAR, GIS, digital twins and data-driven infrastructure intelligence to strengthen municipal service delivery.

SPEAKERS

PAPER 16 JOSHUA SPOONER

PAPER 16 IONE LOOTS University of Pretoria

Joshua Spooner is a Civil Engineer specialising in water resources, stormwater and flood risk engineering at Delta Hydro.

Ione Loots is a registered Professional Civil Engineer specialising in water and stormwater projects. She also holds a PhD in Agricultural Engineering.

He holds a Master of Engineering degree from the University of Pretoria, where his research focused on synthetic design storms for small catchments in eThekwini. His professional work focuses on flood modelling, hydrological data analysis, statistical modelling and urban hydrology.

She is currently employed at the University of Pretoria, where she teaches various undergraduate and postgraduate subjects, conducts research on the hydrology and hydraulics of urban flooding and is involved in various local and international consulting engineering projects.

In addition to engineering consulting, Joshua co-founded Pretzel Designs, a steel design and fabrication company specialising in modern steel furniture, signage and fire pits.

When she is not working with water, Ione enjoys travelling, being outdoors and spending time with family. She believes that some of the best ideas come when you step away from your desk and give your brain something else to think about.

Outside of engineering, Joshua enjoys an active outdoor lifestyle, including distance running, triathlon training and water polo. He is passionate about creative problem solving and bridging the gap between academic research and real-world engineering application

PAPER 17

PAPER STANDBY 1

LEON GROBBELAAR

DR JEREMY BIDDLE

Raalebborg Environmental

Bluewater Bio

Leon Grobbelaar is the Managing Director of Raalebborg Environmental. Before founding the company, he served as a Main Board Director of one of South Africa’s leading multinational waste management companies, overseeing all waste management facilities across Southern Africa. During this time, Leon played a key role in developing waste management infrastructure, including pioneering public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives for landfill facilities for District Municipalities and leading the licensing of South Africa’s first direct combustion municipal solid waste plant.

Jeremy is a lifelong process engineer with a degree from Imperial College, London in Biochemistry and a PhD on nitrification in trickling filters from Cranfield University.

Leon is a Past President of the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA), reflecting his long-standing commitment to the waste management profession. He holds a National Higher Diploma in Soil Conservation from Tshwane University of Technology. This foundation has shaped his approach to landfill management, with soil conservation principles informing the design, construction, operation, rehabilitation and closure of landfill facilities. Leon is committed to technically sound, environmentally responsible and sustainable waste management solutions, while maintaining high operational standards. He also enjoys the outdoors, avid hunting and adventure motorcycle touring.

His professional career began in a small UK company specialising in industrial effluent treatment, but also servicing the municipal water, wastewater and sludge treatment sectors. He worked throughout Europe, Morocco, China and one of his last projects with the firm was the design of chemical storage and dosing facilities for Stonecutters Island STW, Hong Kong, just before the territory was handed back to China. To get a break from travel whilst he had a young family, Jeremy joined Southern Water, managing engineering teams on new large wastewater treatment plants in the south of the UK. After a couple of years back in consultancy, Jeremy joined Bluewater Bio in 2010, three years after the company’s formation. He is the Technical Director at Bluewater Bio. Working with Dr Garry Hoyland, Dr Caroline Huo, Dr Francis Hassard and others, the team developed a detailed understanding of HYBACS and successfully commercialised the process in Europe, the Middle East and South Africa, as well as developing FilterClear, a high-rate multimedia filtration technology. Jeremy lives in Hertfordshire, UK, and travels frequently to South Africa and the Middle East to support Bluewater Bio’s growing team in those regions, in particular Derick Coetzee, Regional Director for South Africa.

IMESA

BIENNIAL PROJECT EXCELLENCE AWARDS

CALL FOR ENTRIES To recognise outstanding achievements in municipal infrastructure, we are calling for entries that showcase projects that demonstrate the best of civil engineering as a science and how engineering enhances the lives of the local communities, through excellence in:

ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE IN STRUCTURES & CIVILS E.g. Projects demonstrating engineering science, use of alternate materials, innovative construction processes, etc.

Planning and design Construction methods Innovation and originality Meeting social and technical challenges Contributing to the well-being of communities

COMMUNITY UPLIFTMENT & JOB CREATION E.g. Projects demonstrating labour-intensive construction, skills development, community awareness/participation, etc.

ENVIRONMENT & CLIMATE CHANGE E.g. Environmental rehabilitation, renewable energy, drought solutions, coastal initiatives for rising sea levels, pollution control, educational/ technical initiatives, etc.

CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS 17 June 2027

Only projects that have reached practical or substantive completion by 31 May 2027 will be accepted for the Excellence Awards. Adjudicators reserve the right to reallocate entries in the 3 categories. ENTRY FORMS AND AWARD CRITERIA Available for download on the website: www.imesa.org.za

IMESA THE INSTITUTE OF MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (IMESA)

QUESTIONS Contact Debbie Anderson on +27 (0)83 326 3050 or email conference@imesa.org.za

SPEAKERS

PAPER STANDBY 2

PAPER STANDBY 3

JASON HOLDER

GEORGE M. OCHIENG

Bosch Projects

Vaal University of Technology

Jason Holder, a professionally registered Technologist, is an accomplished Civil Engineer with 31 years of experience, including 22 years of professional experience and 28 years specialising in water and wastewater engineering.

George obtained his BSc (Hons) in Agricultural Engineering from JKUAT and an MPhil in Civil & Structural Engineering from Moi University, Kenya, before completing his Doctor of Technology in Civil Engineering at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). He managed civil works and lectured. With 22 years of tertiary education experience, Prof Ochieng served as Head of the Civil Engineering & Building Department at Vaal University of Technology (VUT). He championed curriculum development and led the department to achieve full ECSA accreditation for programmes.

He currently serves as the Divisional Manager for Wastewater (KZN) at Bosch Projects, where he has spent 25 years managing and engineering complex sewerage infrastructure projects and bulk wastewater master planning initiatives. Holder holds a BTech in Civil Engineering from the Durban University of Technology and is a registered Professional Engineering Technologist with the Engineering Council of South Africa. Throughout his tenure, he has directed several high-profile water projects, notably serving as the Lead Technical Advisor for the eThekwini Municipality/ GTAC public-private partnership feasibility study for a new water production facility. He has directed the detailed designs for the upgrade of the Hillcrest and Tongaat Wastewater Treatment Works. Additionally, Holder successfully managed the Northern and Phoenix Wastewater Treatment Works capacity upgrades, bulk wastewater master planning for major eThekwini catchments, and comprehensive sanitation technology reviews and feasibility studies for the Water Research Commission.

He serves as Associate Professor and Head of the Research Unit for Water, Energy-Sensitive Settlement Design & Climate Action at VUT. His expertise includes geotechnical engineering, sustainable water infrastructure, wastewater reclamation and predictive hydrological modelling. He remains involved in curriculum design and technical assessment, linking academia with standards. George is committed to developing the next generation of professionals. He serves on academic committees, is a National Committee Member of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) and a member of the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA).

IMESA

64 Paper 1: Christa Liebenberg Paper 2: Shawn Johnson 65 Paper 3: Erika Braune Mike Wiese Paper 4: Truman Hardon Roxanne Canny 66 Paper 5: James Hough Theo Kleynhans Paper 6: Samista Jugwanth Yasheen Harrielall 67 Paper 7: Johan Basson Paper 8: Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau 68 Paper 9: Sihle Ndumiso Ngema Paper 10: Mike Greatwood

69 Paper 11: Gerhard Vivier Paper 12: Chris Wilcock 70 Paper 13: Rapheal Temitayo Bamisaye Paper 14: Anisur Rahman 71 Paper 15: Leonard Balakisten Seelan Rajah Paper 16: Joshua Spooner Ione Loots 72 Paper 17: Leon Grobbelaar Standby Paper 1: Dr Jeremy Biddle 73 Standby Paper 2: Jason Holder Standby Paper 3: George M. Ochieng 75 Index to Papers

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 1

PAPER 2 Christa Liebenberg

Leading Calm amidst Chaos Leading Calm Amidst Chaos examines the increasingly complex landscape that municipal leaders must navigate, offering insights rooted in lived experience and strategic practice. With 34 years of service across four municipalities — and as the first female municipal manager in the Western Cape, South Africa — I share a candid, practical perspective on resilience, clarity, and purpose in leadership. From surviving two suspensions to personally coaching over 250 hours with directors, managers, and senior staff, I have witnessed firsthand the human and organisational challenges that define modern municipal management. Today’s municipal environment is characterised by relentless pressures: political polarisation, audit and compliance burdens, rapid technological advances, and rising community expectations. Systems that centralise appointment and development decisions at the national level, though well-intentioned, often erode the decision-making latitude of local leaders, inadvertently undermining high-performing municipalities. For many managers, this results in a cycle of firefighting, decision fatigue, anxiety, and professional isolation, leaving little space for the strategic thinking that communities urgently require. This paper blends professional insight with practical guidance, highlighting how the personal toll of leadership manifests at work, at home, and in health. We will explore why popular self-help tools, podcasts, and conferences often fail to create lasting change, and why leaders must instead cultivate accountability, reflection, and support systems that sustain real transformation. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to shift from reactive survival mode to proactive, forward-looking leadership. By reclaiming clarity and calm under pressure, municipal leaders can strengthen relationships, improve decision-making, and foster sustainable performance for both their teams and themselves. Ultimately, this paper is a call to reconnect with the purpose of leadership, to embrace small but meaningful actions that restore balance, and to model the resilience, foresight, and calm authority that thriving municipalities need in uncertain times. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Hidden pressures and personal costs of municipal leadership. 2. Why conventional coping methods often fail. 3. Practical strategies to regain clarity, purpose, and energy. 4. Small, immediate steps to build resilience and relationships. 5. Leading calmly and strategically in unpredictable environments.

IMESA

Shawn Johnson

Cost-Effective Flood Forecasting for Municipal Disaster Management Systems Building on previous work using simple linear regression to forecast water levels, this project operationalises the approach into a live, public-facing flood early-warning system. Whereas the earlier study evaluated models offline across different training periods and extreme events, this phase tackles their deployment for continuous, real-time forecasting in resource-constrained settings. A multi-site platform (enviromap.net) delivers hourly water level forecasts for the Mzinyathi and Palmiet rivers in KwaZulu-Natal. It uses real-time water level and rainfall data from Obscape IoT stations operated by the eThekwini Municipality, which kindly shared their data for this research. These are combined with rainfall forecasts from eleven weather models via OpenMeteo to produce seven-day iterative predictions. An automated grid search selects the optimal lag combination of past water levels and rainfall per site, adapting to local catchment response. A progressive web app offers a community-facing lite view with a configurable flood threshold and warning, plus a technical dashboard with observed data, per-model forecasts, ensemble averages, and rolling accuracy statistics by forecast horizon. The system evaluates each forecast against later observations, accumulating site-specific accuracy metrics over time. Early results show that simple regression models deliver useful shorthorizon forecasts when paired with quality observations and a multi-model ensemble. Mean absolute errors stay within a few centimetres over the first 24 hours, growing gradually at longer horizons. New gauges can be added by inserting a database row and retraining locally, with no code changes. This demonstrates that real-time flood forecasting can be delivered transparently and affordably where traditional hydrological modelling is not feasible. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Cost-Effective Real-Time Forecasting 2. Site-Specific Adaptive Modelling 3. Transparent Performance Reporting 4. Limitations and Future Research

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 3

PAPER 4 Erika Braune Mike Wiese

Rethinking Design Compliance: Lessons Learned to Enhance Flood Resilience and Safety South Africa has well-developed flood risk management guidance, yet severe flooding continues to impact municipalities. Recent flood events, including the 2022 floods in Durban, 2023 floods in the Western Cape and 2026 floods in Limpopo, have highlighted the growing vulnerability of urban areas and the scale of flood-related impacts. While technical resources for flood estimation and stormwater design are well established, designing infrastructure for a specified design flood does not equate to safety, particularly during larger events. The gap lies in how these guidelines are translated into holistic municipal flood planning and management, especially in environments characterised by inherited infrastructure constraints, changing catchment characteristics and limited maintenance resources. This implementation gap is explored through three fluvial flood-related case studies representing different development contexts. The first examines a greenfield development within a historically active floodplain settlement area. The second considers a residential area affected by recurring flooding linked to historical agricultural alterations to the river system dating back to the late 1800s. The third focuses on an industrial development situated within a historical floodplain where development patterns impacted on the effectiveness of drainage infrastructure, ultimately resulting in severe flooding. Across all cases, common challenges include cumulative catchment changes due to urbanisation, insufficient consideration of historical floodplain behaviour, limited budgeting for maintenance and upgrades, and a lack of clear understanding and communication of risks associated with flood events exceeding the design standard. Lessons learned from these studies highlight the need for a more holistic approach to managing fluvial flood risk beyond compliance with design standards, with specific consideration of residual risk within the broader river system. These insights are synthesised into a practical questions-based framework which municipalities can apply in scoping flood studies, interrogating system-wide risks, and identifying potential “weak points” within river catchments. The framework encourages improved alignment between flood risk assessment, infrastructure planning, maintenance prioritisation and land-use decision-making. By shifting the focus beyond design compliance towards system-wide resilience, the questions-based framework aims to bridge the gap between existing guidance and practical implementation, ultimately rethinking public safety during major flood events. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Design Flood does not equate to safety 2. Catchments are dynamic systems and historical context matters 3. Holistic planning and management approach of residual risk of river flooding 4. Case studies 5. Lessons learned synthesyzed in practical questions-based framework for increasing flood resilience and safety.

Truman Hardon Roxanne Canny

From Strategy to Implementation: Enabling Measurable Performance in the eThekwini Water & Sanitation Turnaround Strategy Urban water and sanitation services in South Africa face increasing pressure from aging infrastructure, financial constraints, climate change, and growing service delivery demands. Metropolitan municipalities play a critical role in sustaining economic growth and reliable service provision; however, many trading services continue to decline due to underinvestment, operational inefficiencies, and governance challenges. In response, National Treasury introduced the Trading Services Reform Strategy (TSRS), requiring municipalities to implement structured turnaround strategies supported by institutional, financial, and operational reforms. The eThekwini Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) developed a Turnaround Strategy, subsequently amended to align to the National Treasury framework and approved by Council in April 2023, providing a roadmap to stabilise the utility and restore sustainable service delivery. This paper builds on previous work presented at the 2025 IMESA conference, which focused on the development and conceptual foundation of the Turnaround Strategy, and presents the implementation journey and lessons learned. It examines the implementation phase, with particular emphasis on the Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP) as the central mechanism for driving reform, together with the key challenges and lessons emerging from operationalising the strategy. The A3-PIAP consolidates commitments from the TAS, the Institutional Reform Roadmap (A1), and the Business and Investment Plan (A2) into a framework of measurable performance indicators aligned with National Treasury requirements and integrated within municipal governance, budgeting, and Council reporting cycles. The PIAP establishes minimum commitments and performance indicators across accountability, financial, and operational pillars, enabling tracking of governance reforms, revenue improvements, and operational performance enhancements, including non-revenue water reduction and improved service reliability. The paper outlines the approach adopted by EWS to operationalise the PIAP framework, presenting early implementation progress, key challenges related to financial modelling for sustainability, budgetary and grant constraints, and governance alignment, as well as lessons learned. The experience of eThekwini demonstrates how performance monitoring frameworks can enable the transition from strategic planning to measurable operational improvements, providing insights for other municipalities seeking to strengthen governance and financial sustainability. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Key focus areas include implementation progress, overarching challenges, and lessons learned from operationalising the Turnaround Strategy. 2. The presentation will demonstrate how performance-based frameworks enable improved accountability, support informed decision-making, and drive sustainable improvements in service delivery and financial performance.

IMESA

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 5

PAPER 6 James Hough Theo Kleynhans

Samista Jugwanth Yasheen Harrielall

Blueprints Reimagined: An Integrated Water Security Strategy for a Water‑Stressed Municipality

Digital Enablement for Municipal Resilience: Moving Beyond Fragmented Initiatives to Practical, Phased Progress

Small to medium-sized municipalities in arid and semi-arid regions are becoming increasingly vulnerable to water shortages due to climate variability, limited surface water allocations, ageing infrastructure, and growing reliance on groundwater that is already under stress. The town of Prince Albert, located at the northern foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, reflects many of these challenges, having experienced repeated significant summer water shortages. This paper presents a reimagined approach to the town's water security, developed through a comprehensive feasibility study, that brings together surface water management, short-term storage, and managed aquifer recharge into one flexible and coordinated system. The proposed strategy combines a number of smaller, permanent, low-impact interventions, comprising an intake weir with reliable flow measurement and sediment control, off channel raw water storage, and a series of check dams and a sand dam designed to support natural and assisted groundwater recharge. Hydrological modelling based on below-average rainfall conditions, and informed by climate change projections, shows that a phased off-channel storage volume of 50,000 m³, expandable to 100,000 m³, can provide more than 72 months of water supply security when used together with moderate water demand management measures and existing groundwater sources. The inclusion of flood control and recharge structures promotes ground water recharge and strengthens groundwater reserves, limits flood damage, while still meeting environmental flow requirements and protecting downstream water users. The study demonstrates that carefully rethinking conventional water infrastructure, with an emphasis on flexibility, modular design, and phased implementation, can significantly improve resilience without large once-off capital expenditure. Institutional coordination, environmental approvals, and water demand and leakage management are built into the proposed system, supporting long-term sustainability and regulatory compliance. This case study provides a practical and transferable framework for other water-stressed municipalities, showing how integrated multidisciplinary planning, sound engineering, and data driven decision-making can turn fragmented water sources into resilient and climate-responsive municipal water systems.

Municipalities face increasing pressure to deliver reliable services under conditions of ageing infrastructure, constrained resources, skills attrition, climate-related disruption, and heightened governance and reporting requirements. While digital systems are widely promoted as enablers of resilience, many municipalities experience fragmented initiatives, limited visibility across departments, duplicated reporting, and growing change fatigue. In these contexts, digital investment often increases complexity without delivering meaningful service delivery improvements. This paper argues that municipal resilience depends less on digital sophistication and more on digital readiness, service-led clarity, and disciplined sequencing. Drawing on practical experience across public sector organisations, it demonstrates how digital immaturity amplifies service delivery risk by reducing situational awareness, slowing decision-making, and weakening governance defensibility during periods of disruption. The paper introduces a structured approach to digital enablement grounded in eight pillars of digital maturity: Strategy and Leadership, Governance and Compliance, Technology and Infrastructure, Data and Analytics, People and Skills, Internal Operations, Service Delivery and Customer Experience, and Innovation and Partnerships. Together, these pillars provide a holistic view of how digital capability supports service reliability, accountability, and organisational resilience beyond technology alone. Building on this baseline, the paper outlines a facilitated digital visioning process that anchors digital ambition in municipal mandate and service delivery realities. The process focuses on identifying services and functions under the greatest operational and regulatory pressure and defining where digital systems must stabilise, enable, or improve performance. This ensures that digital priorities are directly linked to risk reduction and service delivery outcomes. The final stage translates insight into action through a phased digital enablement roadmap, defining clear priorities, sequencing, and dependencies. This enables municipalities to progress incrementally and responsibly, avoiding disruptive large-scale transformations while building confidence, capability, and institutional memory. The paper concludes that municipalities adopting this approach achieve improved system visibility, stronger alignment between digital investment and service outcomes, and more defensible decision-making. By positioning digital enablement as an extension of infrastructure stewardship, it highlights the role of municipal engineers and leaders in moving beyond fragmented initiatives towards practical, phased progress that strengthens service delivery and long-term resilience.

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Rethinking Water Security Beyond a Single Water Source 2. Designing for a Changing Climate with Limited Data 3. Smart Infrastructure: Achieving More with Fewer Resources 4. Turning Floodwater from a Problem into a Resource 5. Bringing Engineering, Environment, and Governance Together 6. Making Groundwater a Planned and Reliable Water Source 7. A Practical Model for Small and Medium Municipalities 8. Reworking Existing Ideas. Not Starting from Scratch

IMESA

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Digital maturity is a service delivery capability, not an IT metric 2. Introducing the 8 Pillars of Digital Maturity and what they cover 3. Digital Visioning Through Service Pressure 4. Translating Insight into a Phased Action Plan 5. The Value Proposition: What Municipalities Gain

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 7

PAPER 8 Johan Basson

Sustainable engineering service response to future back yard dwellers and densification Urbanisation has become a global phenomenon leading to an increased demand for housing in urban areas. Densification happens often through the emergence of back yard dwellers, where people construct informal housing structures in the backyards of formal houses or on undeveloped land. Planning for this, is a social and physical challenge to engineers in the field of urban development. It has a direct impact on demand management and maintenance of services. Densification raises sustainability concerns as informal settlements often lack access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation, and electricity. Additionally, the increased pressure on already limited resources may lead to unsustainable development. Current civil engineering guidelines used for the design of services can fall short in addressing the higher population densities, and current minimum service standards could be incapable in dealing with higher demands on the infrastructure services. To address these challenges, civil engineering infrastructure design plays a crucial role in supporting sustainable urban development. In the design process, engineers should consider, best practices, current guidelines, engineering principles, measured and expected demand, capital and lifecycle costing, maintenance, and affordability amongst others. Appropriate designs can provide infrastructure that supports the integration of informal settlements into the formal urban fabric, such as providing basic services and improving access to transportation. By adopting a holistic approach, civil engineers can contribute to building more resilient and equitable urban areas. Civil engineers have a key role to play in designing infrastructure that supports sustainable urban development and the integration of informal settlements. By doing so, they can contribute to building more equitable and resilient cities that are able to meet the needs of all residents. Municipal engineers are required to investigate and propose adjusted engineering guidelines as a response to meet these challenges. This paper provides some insight to this problem, some solutions and suggestions in designing civil engineering services. This could provide critical input to more Sustainable Cities delivering services to their communities. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Urbanisation, Densification, Back yard dwellers, Residential Developments 2. Higher demand on Civil Engineering services 3. Appropriate Design 4. Informal housing 5. Best practices 6. Maintenance of Engineering services 7. Providing Sustainable Engineering services 8. Design Guidelines

Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau

Experimental Evaluation of Fly Ash and Steel Dust for Eco-Friendly Masonry in Low-cost Housing in South Africa The ever-increasing backlog of applications of government low-cost housing in South Africa has been a long-standing socio-economic challenge. Mansory is the most widely used construction material in South Africa due to its strength and durability. However, due to the rising cost of Mansory, construction of low-cost government housing has been significantly challenged, resulting to elevated homeless civilians. Furthermore, the elevated carbon emission associated with cement production which is one of the key ingredients in masonry production has prompted for the search of an alternative cement replacement. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the mechanical effect of using fly ash and steel dust as alternatives to cement in the manufacturing of masonry units for lowcost housing in South Africa. The study was conducted by manufacturing masonry samples using varying percentages of fly ash and steel dust as alternatives to cement. The samples were subjected to mechanical tests including compressive, tensile and flexural strength. Statistical tests such as regression and ANOVA tests were conducted to identify the optimum percentage replacement of cement with fly ash and steel dust. Additionally statistical analysis was conducted to assess the influence of fly ash and steel on the mechanical property of masonry. The research results will provide significant information to civil engineers, practitioners, and the government to address the pressing need for providing housing to the citizens while promoting the use of sustainable and costeffective building technologies in South Africa. By using industrial waste, the proposed masonry will contribute to the development of environmentally safe building practices, reduce the cost of building constructions, and popularize the use of green building materials in the government’s low-cost housing projects. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Low-cost housing 2. Fly ash 3. Steel dust 4. Sustainable masonry 5. South Africa

IMESA

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 9

PAPER 10 Sihle Ndumiso Ngema

Mike Greatwood

Recent Geometric Design Research: Extracting Actionable Practices for Municipal Road Upgrades

Navigating the Water Services Amendment Bill: Implications, Risks, and Strategic Responses

Municipal road upgrade projects are usually delivered under tight budget limits, short construction windows and a strong preference to retain the existing alignment. Under these conditions, geometric issues are often left unresolved on the assumption that meaningful improvement would require costly realignment. This paper reviews recent geometric design research to identify practical lessons for municipal road upgrades and to consider which consistency-related improvements may be justified within typical project constraints. The review draws mainly on recent work on operating speed, geometric consistency, sight distance, three-dimensional alignment coordination, superelevation treatment and local curve refinement. Most of this evidence comes from rural and interurban highway studies. The paper therefore does not assume direct transfer to all municipal streets. Instead, it focuses on municipal corridors where highway like geometric conditions still arise, such as urban arterials, peri-urban links, freight routes and other upgrade corridors with meaningful speed transitions, restricted sight distance or constrained horizontal and vertical alignment. The review suggests that consistency-based assessment is useful in the municipal context not because it automatically leads to large geometric changes, but because it helps to distinguish between problems that can be addressed through modest measures and those that require more substantial intervention. In some cases, the appropriate response may be improved warning and delineation, revised speed management, or localised geometric refinement. In others, targeted widening treatment, superelevation or runoff adjustment, sight-distance correction, or local profile modification may be warranted. Only a smaller group of cases is likely to justify major reconstruction. The paper argues for a case-by-case approach rather than a universal rule. Its contribution is a practical decision framework for municipalities and their consultants: how to interpret recent geometric design research, how to identify consistency-related problems early in project development, and how to match the response to the corridor, the risk and the available budget. In this way, the paper seeks to translate current research into realistic upgrade practice rather than idealised redesign.

South Africa’s water services sector is undergoing its most far reaching transformation since 1997, driven by the Water Services Amendment Bill, revised national Norms and Standards, and the reform momentum generated under Operation Vulindlela. These reforms seek to address deteriorating municipal performance, widespread non compliance with water quality standards, and systemic service failures. However, they unfold within a context of profound structural constraints, including ageing infrastructure, severe skills shortages, weak revenue systems, and the fiscal limitations imposed by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). This paper provides a rigorous analysis of the implications, risks, and strategic considerations arising from the Amendment Bill, arguing that the current reform trajectory risks deepening—rather than resolving — the sector’s crisis if not aligned with municipal realities. The paper begins by examining constitutional mandates, particularly the tension between municipalities’ obligation to ensure access to safe and reliable water services and the MFMA’s requirement that they operate strictly within affordability constraints. It demonstrates how legislative instruments — including the Water Services Act, National Water Act, Municipal Systems Act, and newly introduced technical and tariff Norms and Standards — intersect to create obligations that many municipalities are structurally incapable of meeting. The introduction of mandatory licensing for Water Services Providers (WSPs) represents a major architectural shift, centralizing regulatory power at national level and raising constitutional, financial, and organisational implications for Water Services Authorities (WSAs). Using Msunduzi Municipality as a representative case study, the paper illustrates how national reforms collide with local capacity limitations, highlighting challenges related to the WSA/WSP split, professionalization requirements, and tariff affordability. It analyses emerging risks —especially those related to licensing, labour dynamics, organisational restructuring, and service continuity — and identifies Material Adverse Government Action (MAGA) as a critical contractual consideration under the new regulatory regime. The paper concludes that meaningful reform requires alignment between legislative ambition and municipal capability. Without fiscal recalibration, institutional strengthening, and coherent cross government coordination, the Amendment Bill may formalize contradictions that will perpetuate the sector’s cycle of non compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels.

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Converts recent geometric design research into a practical framework for municipal road upgrades. 2. Distinguishes low, moderate and high cost consistency related interventions on a case-by-case basis. 3. Supports safer, more consistent corridor upgrades without assuming wholesale realignment.

IMESA

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. The purpose of this Paper is to provide a precise, analytically rigorous, and strongly framed assessment of the implications, risks, and strategic responses required to navigate this transition. 2. It is written from the perspective that reform is necessary, but reform that is misaligned with fiscal, institutional, and constitutional realities will not succeed. 3. Unless the contradictions embedded in the current framework are directly confronted, the sector will remain trapped in a cycle of non‑compliance, declining service levels, and eroding public trust.

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 11 Gerhard Vivier

The Knowledgeable Client

PAPER 12 Chris Wilcock

The Public Procurement Act Has Been Declared Invalid – What Does This Mean For A Judiciously Reimagined Blueprint For Effective Procurement?

In this paper, we will elaborate on the criticality of the built environment reform, the requirement for new construction regulations and the importance of the enforcement of Identification of Work within the built environment. We're having an 8x higher mortality rate than the developed countries like the UK and Australia. Construction is accounting for 40% of workplace deaths despite employing only 6-10% of the workforce and compensation payouts totalled more than R20 billion since 2019 for preventable injuries. Investigations and Corrective Action take forever! We need to do meaningful reform to save the dying Construction Industry, and our reputations as Built Environment Professionals! The new construction regulations (still to be published) will fundamentally shift accountability requiring of Clients to perform mandatory documented risk assessments and safety specifications from project inception, will enable Construction Health & Safety Managers with authority to stop unsafe work and create career pathways towards professional registration to eliminate amateur operators. The City embraced the industry reform and entered into Memorandums of Understanding with all of the statutory councils established under the CBE Act (43 of 2000) and the other councils associated with the built environment to drive professional registration. The drive is based on crossdisciplinary engagement, collaboration with professional bodies, defined roads to registration, embedment into our HR systems and career pathways, maintaining bi-annual engagements with CBE and Councils, mentorship & candidacy tracking, an institutionalised compliance culture and continuous learning. Change management and collaboration with other government institutions are included. Lack of professional indemnity (PI) cover for internally executed projects created financial and operational risks and hampered professionalisation. To reduce risk exposure, safeguard professional integrity, to promote quality assurance and compliance, CCT developed a SOP to provide structure, certainty, and efficiency to manage PI cover through the General Insurance Fund (GIF). Together, we can build a Professional and Ethical Local Government workforce that aligns municipal service delivery with national professional standards while fostering inclusive and sustainable development for all.

When questioned on the delay in getting a much-needed project off the ground, many a municipal engineer has replied, in exasperation, “It is stuck at Supply Chain!” I have much sympathy for the colleagues in procurement who face pressures, sometimes intolerable, from all sides. The fact is, though, that there is a perception that Supply Chain (to be called Procurement going forward) is a roadblock in service delivery. In even the best run municipalities, the awarding of tenders can take an inordinate amount of time. The “new” Public Procurement Act, 28 of 2024 (the Act) sought, among other objectives, to “… improve efficiency and effectiveness in procurement by streamlining procurement processes, amongst others, through the use of technology”. One of the key problems facing public procurement practitioners is the fragmentation of the legislative framework governing public procurement. The Act sought to significantly reduce the plethora of laws and quasi-laws that practitioners have to take into account. The Regulations, which had to be gazetted before the impugned Act could come into effect, had been drafted by National Treasury and, at the time of writing, had been published for public comment in terms of the public participation process. Numerous submissions had been made by the closing date for submission of 15 July 2026. These were to have been considered by National Treasury before being revised and then submitted to the National Assembly for parliamentary scrutiny as required by the Act. Only thereafter could the Regulations be gazetted. As evident from the timeline shown here, the process was well advanced and the regulations, albeit flawed, were getting close to bringing the Act into effect. The unanimous Constitutional Court judgment handed down on 17 September 2026, has upset the proverbial applecart, leaving the public procurement community, the builders of public infrastructure and all those engaged in service delivery asking, “What now?” This paper will attempt to answer that question and will propose to municipal engineers an approach to effectively function during this period of uncertainty so that everything does not remain stuck at Supply Chain.

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. The construction industry safety record is unacceptable – enough is enough! 2. The new construction regulations together with the Identification of Work is embraced. 3. S trengthen ethical conduct, professional responsibility, and decision-making. 4. Leveraging in-house knowledge while managing risk and liability.

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. A brief overview of the Constitutional Court judgment. 2. A brief description of the current status of the legislation; 3. The options now open to the legislators. 4. An analysis of the draft regulations, some of which can be used under the current legislation, likely to affect the municipal engineers’ work. 5. The challenges to be addressed during the revision of the Act. 6. Recommendations for the interim period.

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ABSTRACTS

PAPER 13 Rapheal Temitayo Bamisaye

PAPER 14 Anisur Rahman

A Discussion on the Applications of Recycled Concrete Aggregates for the Built Environment in South Africa

Optimized Flexible Linings for a More Sustainable Riverbank Protection Comparing to the Traditional Riprap

Civil infrastructure demands substantial quantities of natural aggregates for construction. The sustained availability of these resources is being challenged due to natural aggregates depletion and adverse environmental effects associated with its extraction and use. Considering these concerns, use of recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) from construction and demolition waste has been gaining popularity in civil infrastructures. Despite considerable research, issues of variability, uncertain performance, and a lack of guidelines for characterisation and design constrain adoption of RCA. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the available data related to known engineering properties of RCA in comparison with natural aggregates. RCA utilisation is discussed with reference to civil engineering applications in general and pavement applications in particular. RCA is being used in unbound granular pavement layers, and to a lesser extent in bound layers. In addition to pavement applications, successful use of RCA has been reported in structural concrete, embankments, backfills and drainage systems. The available local and international literature suggest that in controlled trials, RCA can achieve satisfactory performance for a range of applications; however, it is generally considered to be a cost-effective material for nonspecialised applications and is not commonly used in high-value or critical applications. RCA use can also be viewed in the context of recycling, downcycling and upcycling. Much of the RCA is currently used for downcycling, particularly in unbound applications such as subbases and base courses, and low-grade fill. However, true recycling occurs when the performance properties of the material are identical or very similar to those of the natural aggregates. There is however emerging potential to upscale the use of RCA in higher value applications where both performance and durability can be optimised by beneficiation techniques, such as surface treatment to meet specific construction criteria. Thus, the sustainability benefits of RCA are not simply based on its use alone but rather how the material maintains its original value across its lifecycle. This paper thus highlights the need for performance-based design framework that can account for material variability and associated performance uncertainties to enable safe and reliable application of RCA in the built environment in South Africa.

The riverbank erosion threatens municipal infrastructure in flood prone regions, driving up costs for repairs and protection in natural and artificial watercourses. Traditional rip-rap linings request huge natural stone resources, incurring high expenses from quarrying and carbon intensive transport. This paper presents a specialized software suite that revolutionizes erosion control design by prioritizing cost effective and performance based solutions for longitudinal bank protections and grade control structures. The software integrates hydraulic modeling with material specific criteria, analyzing the cross sections under steady, uniform and turbulent flow conditions. It calculates critical hydraulic parameters including average velocity, shear stress and velocity under lining, comparing them against material specific thresholds to ensure the structural stability and erosion resistance. The tractive force method, preferred over the permissible velocity approach, is employed to assess the interaction between flow induced stresses and channel linings, offering a more reliable representation of erosion dynamics. Central to its cost savings is the incorporation of the full scale tests (in accordance with ASTM D6460) on innovative reno mattresses with pleated diaphragms and special vertical ties. These enhancements deliver > 50% better flow dissipation and resilience than traditional gabions and reno mattresses, slashing natural resource needs by over 70% versus riprap, translating to dramatic reductions in procurement, transport and installation costs. For grade control, it designs and verifies vertical drops, stepped and sloped weirs, and dissipation basins across flow conditions, with hydraulic and static checks for compliance. In South African contexts, this user friendly tool aligns with municipal priorities by empowering engineers to create resilient designs. It significantly reduces material costs and natural resource consumption compared to traditional rip-rap linings, yielding substantial long term savings for infrastructure Owners. By integrating empirical data from full scale tests, innovative modeling and practical tools, the software advances sustainable hydraulic engineering with proven economic and environmental benefits.

Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Recycled concrete aggregate 2. Sustainability 3. Recycling 4. Downcycling 5. Upcycling 6. RCA utilisation 7. Material variability 8. Beneficiation technique 9. Lifecycle

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Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Ability to design lining systems using a readily available tool 2. Enhanced lining systems with costs, time and labour saving potential

ABSTRACTS

PAPER 15

PAPER 16 Leonard Balakisten Seelan Rajah

Smart Skies, Resilient Water: UAVs in Infrastructure Management The water and sanitation sector is under increasing pressure from aging infrastructure, rapid urbanization, climate change, and limited operational resources. Traditional methods for monitoring, inspection, and planning are often costly, slow, and pose significant safety risks to personnel. In this context, drone technology-also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)has emerged as a valuable tool to support more efficient, safe, and datadriven water and sanitation management. Drones are increasingly used to inspect critical water infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs, pipelines, water towers, and wastewater treatment facilities. Equipped with high resolution cameras and advanced sensors, drones enable rapid identification of leaks, structural defects, corrosion, and operational failures without interrupting services or exposing workers to hazardous environments. This capability supports preventive maintenance and helps reduce water losses, including non revenue water. In wastewater and sanitation systems, drones improve monitoring of sewer networks, treatment plants, and overflow points. They allow utilities to detect blockages, overflows, and infrastructure damage efficiently, improving regulatory compliance and reducing environmental and public health risks. In addition, drones play a growing role in water quality monitoring by collecting real time data and physical water samples from rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, particularly in remote or polluted areas. Beyond infrastructure management, drone technology supports sanitation mapping and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions by providing accurate spatial data for planning sanitation facilities in informal settlements and underserved communities. Drones are also crucial during disasters such as floods and droughts, where they provide rapid situational awareness, support emergency response, and assist in the protection and restoration of water services. Overall, drone technology offers significant benefits to the water and sanitation sector, including enhanced safety, reduced operational costs, faster data collection, improved decision making, and greater resilience to climate related risks. While challenges remain-such as regulatory constraints, skills requirements, and data management needsthe strategic integration of drone technology presents a strong opportunity to modernize water and sanitation services and contribute to sustainable, reliable service delivery. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Safer infrastructure inspection by drones 2. Reduce water losses and costs 3. Smarter compliance and water quality 4. Faster climate and disaster response

Joshua Spooner Ione Loots

Reimagining Stormwater Blueprints: Development of a Bimodal Synthetic Design Storm for Resilient Infrastructure in eThekwini High-intensity precipitation and rapid urbanisation in South Africa can place immense pressure on existing urban stormwater infrastructure. Traditional guidelines for stormwater design often rely on single-peak synthetic design storms, which fail to account for the complex, double-peak (bimodal) rainfall events observed in eThekwini. This study addresses this critical gap by investigating the characteristics of bimodal rainfall and developing a representative synthetic design storm for more robust hydrological modelling. Using observed 5-minute rainfall data from 36 stations across eThekwini, a novel, objective Python-based program (STORM ID-BIMODAL) was developed to isolate and analyse bimodal storm events. The analysis revealed that 12% of major storms in the region exhibit a bimodal distribution. Crucially, these bimodal events were found to be significantly more extreme, with a mean recurrence interval of 22 years, more than double the mean of all major events, and possessed substantially longer durations than single-peak events. Based on these findings, two new bimodal design storms were developed: Bimodal-Same Recurrence Interval and Bimodal-Split Rainfall. A comparative evaluation against traditional single-peak methods (such as SCS-SA and Chicago Design Storms) demonstrated that the Bimodal-Split Rainfall method offered the most reliable representation of local conditions. It accurately reproduced total storm volumes and effectively captured the timing of peaks and saddle points in the study area. Adopting these bimodal design storms allows engineers to better model initial catchment saturation during the first peak, leading to more accurate predictions of peak runoff during the second peak. This research provides a data-driven approach to design storm modelling, focusing on the generation of a regionally calibrated design storm for eThekwini that accounts for the bimodal rainfall events that occur. This will enable eThekwini and similar regions to improve the mitigation of risks associated with extreme flood events. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Identification of Regional Risks: Evidence that 12% of major storms in eThekwini are bimodal and significantly more severe in duration and intensity than other storm types. 2. Technological Innovation: Introduction of an objective, reproducible Python-based methodology for isolating bimodal events, moving away from subjective visual inspection. 3. Improved Design Accuracy: Demonstration of the Bimodal-Split Rainfall design storm method as a superior "blueprint" for accurately reproducing storm volume and peak timings. 4. Infrastructure Resilience: Guidelines for adopting bimodal design storms to improve the robustness of urban stormwater management and flood mitigation strategies in South Africa.

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ABSTRACTS

PAPER 17 Leon Grobbelaar

Blueprints Reimagined: Mitigating Municipal Risk through Optimal Landfill Operating Standards Modern municipal engineering often falls into the trap of viewing landfill management through a narrow lens of immediate disposal, overlooking the looming financial liabilities of site closure and post-closure rehabilitation. This paper argues for a transition away from a revenue-centric "gate fee" model toward a strategy of Optimal Operating Costs. By reimagining the landfill blueprint as a managed asset, municipalities can prioritize targeted operational spending to mitigate long-term fiscal and environmental risks. The core of "judicious" management lies in understanding that sub-optimal spending today creates exponential costs tomorrow. Many municipalities fail to account for the true cost of airspace depletion. Every cubic meter lost to poor compaction or inefficient cell design – often the result of hiring incompetent contractors under the "cheapest price" principle – is a direct hit to the municipal balance sheet. Furthermore, the cost of remediating groundwater contamination caused by substandard daily operations far exceeds the initial investment in technical integrity. Prioritizing optimal operation from "day one" offers three critical riskmitigation advantages: Airspace Preservation: Using professional-grade plant and skilled operators to maximize the lifespan of the existing site, deferring the massive capital cost of new land acquisition. Liability Smoothing: Implementing phased, incremental rehabilitation to avoid the "financial cliff" of a lump-sum closure liability that many municipalities cannot afford. Environmental Shielding: Maintaining rigorous technical standards to protect the Accounting Officer from the legal and financial consequences of non-compliance and water source contamination. This paper challenges municipal leaders to shift focus from "waste burial" to strategic risk mitigation. By optimizing daily operating expenditures, municipalities can transition from managing an environmental burden to overseeing a stable, compliant infrastructure asset. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. True cost of operating landfill or waste management facilities 2. Value of airspace 3. Bioreactors

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PAPER STANDBY 1 Dr Jeremy Biddle

Low-Cost Upgrades for Activated Sludge Plants For over a century, activated sludge plants have been designed and operated as suspended growth systems, but there is an inherent flaw in this approach. Bacteria regulate their metabolism according to their environment and restrict the expression of hydrolytic enzymes when COD concentrations are low; this limits the rate at which COD can be assimilated and oxidised, resulting in inefficient use of large reactor tanks. A novel hybrid activated sludge process was introduced to South Africa in 2010 and a further three plants have been constructed since then. The process creates an environment where biomass can attach at the start of the activated sludge stage, receiving a consistent high concentration of COD as well as oxygen, and triggering the rapid synthesis of hydrolytic enzymes. Incoming COD is quickly hydrolysed, releasing small molecules which are assimilated into the mixed liquor and carried into the main reactor. By accelerating hydrolysis in this way, the process can operate at double the loading rate of a conventional activated sludge plant as well as creating ideal conditions for biological nutrient uptake and the development of a highly settleable sludge. This paper will present data from ERWAT’s wastewater treatment plant at Tsakane, which has been using this technology since 2018. Additional data will be presented from other plants operating globally at a range of scales from 3 to 230 MLD on both municipal and industrial wastewaters. We will explain the process by which an existing plant may be upgraded to use this technology whilst it remains in operation, through offline construction techniques. The presentation will also describe the typical operation and maintenance tasks associated with the technology and compare it to a conventional activated sludge plant. Finally we will illustrate the typical costs for an upgrade and funding mechanisms which may be available. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Innovative technology to double the capacity of an activated sludge plant with global references.

ABSTRACTS

PAPER STANDBY 2 Jason Holder

Reimagining Wastewater Infrastructure for Direct Potable Reuse — A Judicious PPP Approach The Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) required transaction advisory services for the proposed Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) facilities at the existing Northern and KwaMashu Wastewater Treatment Works. Bosch Projects was appointed as Technical Advisor within a PPP Transaction Advisory team to undertake a comprehensive feasibility study in full compliance with the Municipal Systems Act, Municipal Finance Management Act, and National Treasury PPP Guidelines. The proposed DPR plants are designed to produce 70 Ml/d each of potable water, integrating into the existing municipal bulk water network north of the Umgeni River to supply surrounding communities. The reuse of treated wastewater, sourced from predominantly residential and industrial areas within Phoenix, Inanda, and Greater Durban North has been identified in the Municipality’s Water Reconciliation Strategy as a strategic intervention to enhance long-term water security. The completed feasibility study enabled the Municipality to exercise informed engineering and financial judgement in determining the preferred technical, legal, commercial, and socio-economic structuring options for the Project. The assessment incorporated rigorous technical and legal due diligence, full life-cycle costing, affordability analysis, risk allocation modelling, and value-for-money evaluation to ensure responsible project delivery within a PPP framework. Technical option analysis focused on robust, multi-barrier treatment processes designed to comply with SANS 241 drinking water standards and address emerging risks such as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). The approach reflects a measured reimagining of existing wastewater infrastructure transforming it into a resilient potable resource while maintaining public health, regulatory integrity, and stakeholder confidence. The feasibility stage is currently pending approval. Subject to Treasury endorsement, the Project will proceed to procurement, including preparation of bid documentation, evaluation processes, and PPP agreement structuring, culminating in contractual close between the public and private partners. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Water Security 2. Direct Potable Reuse of wastewater 3. Innovation guided by engineering and financial judgement 4. Progress through judicious planning

PAPER STANDBY 3 George Mathews Ochieng

Reimagining Urban Blueprints: A Nexus-Driven Framework for Hybrid Water Supply Systems in Water and Energy-Sensitive Settlements As South Africa pursues the African Union’s Agenda 2063 goals of sustainable water availability, conventional centralized "blueprints" for water delivery are increasingly failing to meet the demands of rapid urbanization and climate instability. In the Sekhukhune District and similar water-stressed regions, the reliance on single-source systems has led to systemic service failures. This paper presents a reimagined framework for "Hybrid Water Supply Systems" (HWSS) that integrates decentralised options – specifically Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) and Stormwater Harvesting (SWH – with traditional surface and groundwater sources. The research utilizes a multi-dimensional methodology: (1) A Water-Energy Nexus (WEN) analysis to quantify the energy intensity of decentralized systems; (2) A Global Warming Potential (GWP) assessment using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) protocols to evaluate carbon footprints; and (3) A numerical simulation-optimization model developed for the Sekhukhune District to test conjunctive use efficiency. Findings indicate that by shifting the surface-to-groundwater reliance ratio and integrating RWH/SWH, municipalities can reduce water supply deficits to less than 1%. Furthermore, the framework identifies that gravity-fed designs in hybrid systems can reduce operational energy intensity by up to 30%, directly addressing the energy-sensitivity of South African settlements. This research provides a "judicious blueprint" for municipal engineers to transition from reactive water management to proactive, circular, and climate-resilient utility models that harmonize water security with energy conservation. Key Presentation Impact Points: 1. Blueprints Reimagined Judiciously 2. Municipal Service Delivery 3. Climate-Resilient Infrastructure 4. Sustainable Utility Models 5. Hybrid Water Supply Systems (HWSS) 6. Water-Energy Nexus (WEN) 7. Conjunctive Use Efficiency 8. Rainwater & Stormwater Harvesting 9. Operational Energy Intensity 10. Sekhukhune District Case Study

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PAPERS

INDEX TO PAPERS PAPER 1 PAPER 2 PAPER 3

Leading Calm Amidst Chaos: Are You The Pressure Cooker That Is About To Explode?

Presented Christa Liebenberg Cost-Effective Flood Forecasting For Municipal Disaster Management Systems

Presented by Shawn Johnson Rethinking Design Compliance: Lessons Learned To Enhance Flood Resilience And Safety

Presented by Erika Braune and Mike Wiese

PAPER 4

From Strategy To Implementation: Enabling Measurable Performance In The eThekwini Water & Sanitation Turnaround Strategy

PAPER 5

Blueprints Reimagined: An Integrated Water Security Strategy For A Water-Stressed Municipality – The Prince Albert Town Case Study

PAPER 6 PAPER 7 PAPER 8 PAPER 9 PAPER 10

Presented by James Hough and Theo Kleynhans Digital Enablement For Municipal Resilience: Moving Beyond Fragmented Initiatives To Practical, Phased Progress

Engineering Service Response To Future Densification Through Backyard Dwellers, Informal Settlements And Small-Scale Rental Units Experimental Evaluation Of Fly Ash And Steel Dust For Eco-Friendly Mortars In Low-Cost Housing In South Africa

124

Presented by Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau Recent Geometric Design Research: Extracting Actionable Practices For Municipal Road Upgrades

129

Presented by Sihle Ndumiso Ngema Renavigating The Water Services Amendment Bill: Implications, Risks, And Strategic Responses

137

Presented by Mike Greatwood

PAPER 12

The Public Procurement Act Has Been Declared Invalid – What Does This Mean For A Judiciously Reimagined Blueprint For Effective Procurement?

PAPER 14

117

Presented by Johan Basson

The Knowledgeable Client: Organisational Professionalisation As A Strategic Enabler Of Municipal Infrastructure Delivery, Public Safety And Technical Governance

143

Presented by Gerhard Vivier

150

Presented by Chris Wilcock A Discussion On The Application Of Recycled Concrete Aggregate In The Built Environment In South Africa

157

Presented by Rapheal Temitayo Bamisaye Optimized Flexible Linings For A More Sustainable Riverbank Protection Comparing To The Traditional Riprap

164

Presented by Anisur Rahman

PAPER 15

Smart Skies, Resilient Water: UAVs In Infrastructure Management The Role Of Drone Technology In Advancing Water And Sanitation Management

PAPER 16

Rethinking Synthetic Design Storms: Evaluating Clipped Scs-Sa And Bimodal Rainfall Events For Small Urban Catchments In eThekwini

PAPER 17

Blueprints Reimagined: Preserving Municipal Landfill Airspace As A Strategic Infrastructure Asset – Why The Cheapest Tender Often Creates The Most Expensive Landfill

STANDBY 1 STANDBY 2 STANDBY 3

103 111

Presented by Samista Jugwanth and Yasheen Harrielall

PAPER 11

PAPER 13

Presented by Truman Hardon and Roxanne Canny

Presented by Leonard Balakisten and Seelan Rajah

169 177

Presented by Joshua Spooner and Ione Loots

184

Presented by Leon Grobbelaar Low-Cost Upgrades For Activated Sludge Plants

190

By Dr Jeremy Biddle Reimagining Wastewater Infrastructure for Direct Potable Reuse – A Judicious PPP Approach

195

By Jason Holder Reimagining Urban Blueprints: A Nexus-Driven Framework for Hybrid Water Supply Systems in Water and Energy-Sensitive Settlements

202

By George Mathews Ochieng

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PAPERS

PAPER 1

LEADING CALM AMIDST CHAOS: ARE YOU THE PRESSURE COOKER THAT IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE? Christa Liebenberg Independent

ABSTRACT Leading Calm Amidst Chaos: Are you the pressure cooker that is about to explode? examines the increasingly complex landscape that municipal leaders must navigate, offering insights rooted in lived experience and strategic practice. With 34 years of service across four municipalities and as the first female municipal manager in the Western Cape, South Africa, I share a candid, practical perspective on resilience, clarity, and purpose in leadership. From surviving two suspensions to personally coaching over 300 hours with directors, managers, and senior staff, I have witnessed firsthand the human and organisational challenges that define modern municipal management. Today’s municipal environment is characterised by relentless pressures regarding political polarisation, audit and compliance burdens, rapid technological advances, and rising community expectations. Systems that centralise appointment and development decisions at the national level, though well-intentioned, often erode the decision-making latitude of local leaders, while inadvertently undermining high-performing municipalities. For many managers, this results in a cycle of firefighting, decision fatigue, anxiety, and professional isolation, leaving little space for the strategic thinking that municipalities urgently require. This paper blends professional insight with practical guidance, highlighting how the personal toll of leadership manifests at work, at home, and in health. We shall explore why popular self-help tools, podcasts, and conferences often fail to create lasting change, and why leaders must instead cultivate accountability, reflection, and support systems that sustain real transformation. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to shift from reactive survival mode to proactive, forward-looking leadership. By reclaiming clarity and calm under pressure, municipal leaders can strengthen relationships, improve decision-making, and foster sustainable performance for both their teams and themselves. INTRODUCTION Municipal management in South Africa is characterised by persistent instability, competing stakeholder demands, and conditions that test the limits of professional and personal resilience. For those who lead municipalities, the ability to remain composed and effective under extreme pressure is not merely desirable, but it is essential. This capacity for calm, decisive leadership is rarely discussed openly, despite being universally felt as a need among practitioners in the field. This paper draws on more than 34 years of direct municipal management experience across four municipalities to explore what it means to lead effectively in conditions of chronic institutional turbulence. The author, who served as the first female municipal manager in the Western Cape, brings both professional and deeply personal insights to this subject, having navigated investigations, inter-municipal transitions, and structural gender exclusions that extended even to the absence of maternity

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provisions in conditions of service at the time. These experiences form the empirical foundation of the central argument that calm is not the absence of problems, but a learnable, practical leadership skill that can be developed and sustained even in the most demanding municipal environments. The paper addresses a gap between what municipal managers experience daily and what is formally acknowledged in leadership literature and training. Its purpose is to examine the nature of chaos in South African municipal management, to document its human cost honestly and with reference to the available research, and to argue that leading calmly amidst that chaos is both achievable and necessary beginning with small, specific, consistently applied steps that any senior municipal engineering manager can take today. THE REALITY OF MUNICIPAL MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA Senior managers in local government in South Africa operate at the intersection of extraordinary institutional complexity and deeply personal sacrifice. Municipal managers are accounting officers and senior managers are cost centre managers, titles that carry not merely administrative responsibility, but full personal liability for the actions and failures of an entire organisation or department. When irregular expenditure is incurred by a department they may not even directly oversee, their name is on it. The legislative environment governing South African local government is among the most complex in the world, with new circulars, new regulations, and new compliance requirements arriving continuously, leaving no margin for ignorance (Thusi & Mamokhere 2024: 241). The law does not recognise exhaustion as a defence. Senior managers are expected to know everything, comply with everything, and account for everything simultaneously, publicly, and under sustained scrutiny. Stakeholder complexity: Leading in every direction at once One of the defining features of municipal management in South Africa is the sheer diversity and volume of stakeholders competing for attention, resources, and accountability. Stakeholders include amongst others politicians with their own agendas, the Auditor-General’s office with its ever-growing requirements, staff who need direction, motivation, and sometimes discipline, the business community demanding service delivery, residents demanding answers, provincial and national departments, Eskom, and international delegations. Each of these stakeholders has legitimate needs and each has a voice. The senior manager is the one expected to hold it all together, often simultaneously, under public scrutiny, and often when already exhausted. This is not merely an administrative challenge. It is a leadership challenge of the highest order. Research confirms that inadequate leadership, dysfunctional governance systems, and insufficient implementation of recruitment policies are among the primary contributors to poor service delivery in South African municipalities (Thusi & Selepe 2023: 689-690). The very managers who are expected to resolve these failures are themselves trapped within the same dysfunctional systems. It is symptomatic of a governance environment in which political patronage, nepotism, and

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the deliberate manipulation of administrative processes have become normalised (Mlambo et al. 2023: 36-37). It would be dishonest to suggest that technical incompetence plays no role in South Africa’s service delivery failures. In some documented cases, it clearly does (Mlambo et al. 2023: 36-37). The more common and more consequential pattern is different where qualified, competent individuals placed inside governance structures are so compromised by political interference, chronic vacancy, and instability that even sound technical judgement cannot translate into sound outcomes (Thusi & Mamokhere 2024: 244). The distinction matters, because it changes where the solution has to be aimed. Compliance overload and the weight of accountability The volume of compliance demands placed on South African municipal managers is staggering. The Municipal Finance Management Act, the Municipal Systems Act, audit requirements, performance reporting frameworks, supply chain regulations, and intergovernmental obligations collectively create a legislative burden that no single individual can realistically carry without structural support. In practice, structural support takes different forms depending on who is positioned to provide it. At the institutional level, it means dedicated compliance and governance capacity through e.g. a compliance officer, a shared services arrangement with neighbouring municipalities, or a formally delegated authority framework that distributes accountability rather than concentrating it in one office. At the individual level, it means the manager’s own use of peer review before sign-off, structured escalation protocols, and induction support for newly appointed engineering managers who are handed this liability with little preparation. Much of this, however, remains outside any individual official’s control: Staff establishments, budget allocations for specialist posts, and national capacity-building programmes through CoGTA and SALGA are systemic levers; not personal ones. This is precisely why the recommendations offered later in this paper distinguish between what can be built by the individual, what must be built by the institution, and what can only be resolved at a national policy level. Research has consistently shown that monitoring and evaluation systems in South African municipalities are poorly implemented, not because the frameworks do not exist, but because municipal employees and managers are not adequately supported or capacitated to implement them (Yekani et al. 2024: e3-e4). Weak monitoring structures, inconsistent frameworks, and insufficient cooperation between oversight institutions and municipalities leave engineering and administrative leaders without the basic management tools needed to function effectively (Yekani et al. 2024: e4-e5). The result is a compounding cycle where the less effective the internal systems, the greater the compliance failures, and the greater the compliance failures, the heavier the personal accountability that falls on the senior manager. Uncertainty as a leadership condition Perhaps the most psychologically corrosive dimension of municipal management in South Africa is the condition of sustained uncertainty. Senior managers can be suspended at any time. They can be held personally liable for decisions they did not make. The ground beneath their feet is never solid. Research into governance failures in South African municipalities has documented widespread instability in senior management positions, with prolonged acting appointments and high vacancy rates in critical roles, including chief financial officers, chief audit executives, and chief risk officers that are directly linked to poor governance outcomes and rising

irregular expenditure (Thusi & Mamokhere 2024: 244). Political interference in administrative matters further destabilises the environment in which managers work, creating what has been described as an unstable operating context that actively threatens initiatives for sustainable service delivery (Thusi & Selepe 2023: 691). The human cost: When pressure becomes personal The impact of these conditions does not remain at the office. The social isolation that comes from no longer knowing who you can trust, the vigilance of measuring every relationship of who might use what you say against you, is exhausting in a way that is difficult to describe to those who have not experienced it. The physical consequences are equally real and equally underacknowledged. Persistent fatigue. Disordered eating. No time for exercise. Anxiety that manifests as chest tightness, disordered breathing, and the inability to switch off. These are not signs of weakness. They are the physiological responses of a human being under sustained, extreme pressure. Research on leadership in South African local government has noted that the psychological demands of managing in environments characterised by political instability, personal liability, and systemic dysfunction are qualitatively different from those faced by managers in stable institutional environments (Whitaker & Siegelaar 2025). The disintegration of purpose What makes all of this particularly devastating is that most municipal managers entered local government out of genuine commitment. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, that original purpose becomes buried under layers of stress, fear, and exhaustion. Anxiety creeps into every decision. Tempers fray in meetings, creating strained relationships with political principals and colleagues. The work that once felt meaningful begins to feel like pure survival. This erosion of purpose is not merely a personal tragedy. It is a systemic one. South Africa’s infrastructure has declined from a C to a D rating over the past decade, and is drifting toward a classification of no longer fit for purpose (Wall 2024, Art. #1310). The survey of 669 engineering professionals conducted by Rust et al. (2021, Art. #1030) found that the main reasons cited for infrastructure deterioration were a lack of maintenance, lack of institutional capability, insufficient funding, and chronic overloading of existing systems. Behind every one of those institutional failures is a human being, a manager, an engineer, or a technical leader who was either too overwhelmed, too isolated, or too demoralised to implement what they knew needed to be done. The infrastructure crisis in South Africa is, at its core, also a leadership wellbeing crisis. What has been tried and why it has not been enough Senior managers facing these conditions have not been passive. They have tried blood pressure monitoring apps, self-help books, breathing exercises, leadership podcasts, personal trainers, and performance frameworks. They attend conferences hoping to find a new tool or model that will finally bring order to the chaos. In those moments, each new approach feels like it might work. This pattern of throwing oneself into everything, working all hours, trying to solve everything at once is what might be called wild working. It is counterproductive, because it crowds out the small, consistent habits that actually build resilience, i.e. regular exercise, reflection, rest, and honest conversation. The deeper problem is isolation. Most senior managers are managing all of this alone. They do not want to burden their partners and they do

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not know who they can trust to speak frankly to. In an environment where openness can be weaponised, candour feels dangerous, but that isolation makes everything harder. Research on senior management functioning in South African local government confirms that the absence of consistent, confidential support structures and spaces in which managers can think clearly, process decisions, and develop inner stability is a critical missing element in the professional support ecosystem for municipal leadership (Whitaker & Siegelaar 2025). SMALL STEPS THAT YOU CAN TAKE TODAY The preceding sections have painted an honest and, at times, uncomfortable picture of what it means to be a senior municipal engineering manager in South Africa. The institutional dysfunction, the political interference, the compliance overload, the personal liability, and the slow erosion of purpose are all real. They are documented, researched, and widely experienced, but documentation without direction serves no one. The purpose of this section is therefore not to add to the weight of what has already been described, but to offer something concrete, i.e. a set of small, executable steps that can begin shifting the internal conditions of leadership, even when the external conditions remain unchanged. The starting point is a neurological one. Research by Leaf (2025: 38-40) confirms that dramatic, sweeping change attempted once and abandoned is neurologically far less effective than small, repeated, intentional actions practised consistently over time. The brain rewires through repetition. This matters enormously for municipal engineering managers, whose instinct, as shaped by years of technical problem-solving, is to identify the biggest problem and apply the most comprehensive solution available. Under pressure, that instinct becomes counterproductive. It produces wild working, throwing everything at the problem simultaneously, working all hours, attempting to solve everything at once, and in doing so crowding out the very habits that would actually build resilience (Leaf 2025: 27-34). The steps below are deliberately small. Step one: Name your pressure with precision The first and most foundational step is to stop carrying pressure as a vague, undifferentiated weight and begin locating it with specific detail. Specific insight changes everything (Leaf 2025: 35-38). For one week, each time a pressure surfaces, whether it is a compliance deadline, a political encounter, a staffing crisis, or a sleepless night, work through six honest questions: Who is involved? What happened or is happening? When does it hit hardest? Where are you when it surfaces? Why does it affect you so deeply? And how often does it show up? This exercise is not administrative. It is diagnostic. Research on monitoring and evaluation failures in South African municipalities consistently shows that managers who lack the reflective space to assess what is actually happening around them are unable to course-correct before failures become crises (Yekani et al. 2024: e4-e5). The same principle applies internally. You cannot manage pressure you have never clearly seen. Consider a senior engineering manager whose chest has been tight for weeks. Naming it precisely might reveal that it is not the workload itself that is the problem, but the late-night messages from a Councillor questioning a decision that was signed off weeks earlier, and that this happens almost every Sunday night. Step two: Choose one priority and take one small action Once specific pressures have been identified, the next step is to resist the impulse to address all of them simultaneously. Choose the single highest-

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priority pressure, the one that is consuming the most cognitive and emotional energy right now and ask four questions about it (Leaf 2025: 3842): What one small action can I take this week to begin shifting this? What negative thought can I replace with a more honest and constructive one? When exactly will I do this, and how will I remind myself? Who can hold me accountable? Write the answers down. Make the action small, specific, and scheduled. The infrastructural decline documented across South African municipalities is in part a consequence of technical leaders who knew what needed to be done but operated in conditions that made consistent, disciplined action impossible (Rust et al. 2021, Art. #1030). Rebuilding that capacity for consistent action begins with the individual, not the system. That same manager chooses this as the priority. The small action: Drafting one paragraph, this week, for a written decision-log protocol that closes off the after-hours re-litigating of decisions already signed off. It is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. The accountability partner: A colleague in another municipality who has agreed to ask, simply, “did you send it?” on Thursday. Step three: Sit with the pain before you try to fix it This is the step that most engineering managers, trained to solve problems quickly and move on, find most counterintuitive, but it is the most important one. From the work of Eurich (2017), as applied by Leaf (2025: 42-44), the instruction is to sit with the pain that is causing the pressure for a minimum of eight minutes, not to wallow in it, but to understand what it actually means, where it genuinely comes from, and what it has been trying to communicate. Follow this with twelve minutes of deliberate daily reflection, which is genuine, quiet, directed reflection on the broader picture of your life and your leadership. Research on leadership functioning in South African local government confirms that the absence of reflective practice is a critical missing element in the professional support ecosystem for municipal managers and is one whose absence directly correlates with poorer decision-making, higher rates of burnout, and deteriorating governance outcomes (Whitaker & Siegelaar 2025). This is twenty minutes a day of investment that this step requires. Sitting with the tightness in his chest for eight minutes surfaces something underneath the irritation. The feeling that surfaces is not anger at the Councillor, but a fear of being blamed publicly for a decision that was, in fact, correctly made. The reflection that follows makes clear that this fear has been quietly driving decisions for months without ever being named. Step four: Stop managing the pressure alone Perhaps the most structurally significant step available to senior municipal engineering managers is also the one most consistently avoided, i.e. finding a confidential, consistent space in which to think clearly, speak honestly, and develop the kind of inner stability that does not depend on the external environment being cooperative. The isolation that characterises the lives of most senior managers in South African local government is not merely uncomfortable (Thusi & Selepe 2023: 692). It is professionally dangerous. It narrows decision-making, amplifies anxiety, and accelerates the erosion of the purpose that brought most of these managers into local government in the first place. The missing ingredient is a consistent, confidential relationship with someone who genuinely understands the specific world of South African municipal management, within which tools and frameworks can be applied with sustained support and honest accountability (Leaf 2025: 40-44). The earlier concern about who can be trusted is legitimate, and it is precisely why this space cannot be found inside the same organisational

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or political ecosystem that generates the pressure in the first place. It is not a colleague, a subordinate, or a political principal — each of these carries their own stake in the outcome. Viable options include a professional coach or mentor with no reporting relationship to the municipality, a peer from another municipality whose distance from local politics makes candour safer for both parties, structured mentorship through professional bodies such as IMESA or ECSA, or confidential counselling through an Employee Assistance Programme extended specifically to senior technical staff, who are often excluded from these services in practice even where they exist on paper. Managed alone, the fear identified in step three would have stayed private, quietly shaping decisions from the background. Shared, even briefly, with someone outside the reporting line, it becomes something that can be examined and worked with rather than simply carried. CONCLUSIONS Senior municipal engineering managers in South Africa are not failing because they lack technical competence, professional commitment, or genuine desire to serve their communities. They are operating inside a system that is, by every measurable indicator, in serious and accelerating decline. It is a system characterised by political interference, governance dysfunction, compliance overload, chronic under-resourcing, and a neartotal absence of the professional support structures that sustained highperformance leadership actually requires (Rust et al. 2021, Art. #1030; Wall 2024, Art. #1310; Thusi & Mamokhere 2024: 244). The pressure that builds inside that system is real, it is documented, and left unaddressed it is dangerous, not only to the individuals carrying it, but to the infrastructure, the communities, and the institutions that depend on their capacity to lead clearly and calmly under conditions that show no immediate sign of becoming easier. The argument of this paper is that while the larger work continues, the municipal engineering manager standing inside the chaos today cannot afford to wait for the system to heal before beginning to tend to themselves. Small steps, taken consistently, with honest self-awareness, genuine accountability, and the courage to stop carrying the weight alone, are not a retreat from leadership responsibility. They are, in the conditions of South African local government right now, the most serious and consequential act of leadership available (Leaf 2025: 40-44; Yekani et al. 2024: e7-e8). RECOMMENDATIONS Given the severity and complexity of the pressures documented in this paper, the following recommendations are offered as practical, executable priorities. At the individual level, senior municipal engineering managers are strongly encouraged to ensure that they have a consistent professional support structure built into their working life before the pressure cooker reaches its limit (Leaf 2025: 40-44). In practice, this could take the form of a confidential coaching or mentoring relationship external to the municipality, participation in a facilitated peer-support group of engineering managers from different municipalities, or structured supervision of the kind long used in professions such as psychology and social work, where practitioners routinely process the emotional weight of their work with someone outside their reporting line. What matters is not the specific model, but that it is consistent, confidential, and independent of the political and organisational structures that generate the pressure in the first place. At the institutional level, municipalities and the organisations that govern and support them, including SALGA, IMESA, and CoGTA are urged

to formally acknowledge the psychological and professional toll of senior engineering management roles and to develop structured wellbeing and peer support frameworks that are specific to this population, rather than generic wellness offerings that bear no relationship to the realities of the role (Whitaker & Siegelaar 2025; Yekani et al. 2024: e7-e8). At the systemic level, the persistent governance failures that place unqualified individuals in technical leadership positions, enable political interference in engineering and administrative decisions, and leave critical posts vacant for months and years at a time must be addressed as a matter of urgent national priority, because they undermine service delivery, and they impose an unsustainable and ultimately inhumane burden on the qualified professionals who remain (Thusi & Mamokhere 2024: 244; Rust et al. 2021, Art. #1030; Wall 2024, Art. #1310). REFERENCES Eurich T 2025. Shatterproof. McMillan Business, London. Leaf C 2015. Switch On Your Brain. Baker Books, Michigan. pp. 198-201. Leaf C 2025. Help in a Hurry. Baker Books, Michigan. pp. 27-44. Mlambo DN, Mphurpi JH & Makgoba S 2023. Corruption at the municipal level: insight(s) from post-apartheid South Africa. African Journal of Development Studies 13(2): 35-53. Mngomezulu S 2020. Political interference in the administration of service delivery in Umlalazi Local Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies 12(1): 38-45. Rust FC, Wall K, Smit MA & Amod S 2021. South African infrastructure condition — an opinion survey for the SAICE Infrastructure Report Card. Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering 63(2): Art. #1030. Thusi X & Mamokhere J 2024. The state of public service delivery in South African local government after 30 years of democracy: challenges and mitigation strategies. The USV Annals of Economics and Public Administration 24(2[40]): 239-249. Thusi X & Selepe MM 2023. The impact of poor governance on public service delivery: a case study of the South African local government. International Journal of Social Science Research and Review 6(4): 688-697. Wall K 2024. Report cards, and other tracking of South Africa’s public sector fixed infrastructure condition. Acta Structilia 31(1): Art. #1310. Whitaker AN & Siegelaar L 2025. Success profiling of senior managers in Western Cape local government: a quantitative study. Public Organization Review. Yekani B, Ngcamu SB & Pillay S 2024. Management and leadership considerations for managing effective monitoring and evaluation systems in South African municipalities. Journal of Local Government Research and Innovation 5: e1-e8.

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PAPER 2

COST-EFFECTIVE FLOOD FORECASTING FOR MUNICIPAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Shawn Johnson Obscape B.V.

ABSTRACT This paper presents a cost-effective approach to flood forecasting using simple linear regression trained on single-point rainfall and water level observations. Research conducted on the Palmiet River in Durban demonstrated that a model using only three input features (the previous hour’s water level, current rainfall, and previous rainfall) could explain over 85% of the variance in observed water levels when trained on as little as three months of data including a flood event. The critical finding was that including significant rainfall events in the training data dramatically improved model accuracy, with R² values increasing from 0.63–0.74 to 0.85 and mean absolute errors (MAE) decreasing from 0.067–0.069 m to 0.048–0.056 m. Building on these research findings, a pilot phase was initiated to test the approach under real-time operational conditions, where forecast rainfall

must be substituted for observed measurements. A multi-site platform (wxi.info) now delivers hourly water level forecasts for the Mzinyathi and Palmiet rivers in KwaZulu-Natal, using rainfall forecasts from eleven global numerical weather prediction models accessed freely via the Open-Meteo API. An automated grid search selects the optimal lag combination per site, adapting to each catchment’s hydrological response without manual calibration. Initial results from over three months of pilot operation confirm that the regression approach delivers operationally useful water level forecasts, with MAE remaining within two centimetres over the first six hours and under seven centimetres even at extended horizons beyond 72 hours. As anticipated, forecast accuracy at longer horizons is governed primarily by the quality of rainfall forecast inputs, which was the central variable the pilot phase was designed to investigate. The multi-model ensemble provides robustness and a practical measure of forecast uncertainty. This work demonstrates that real-time flood forecasting is achievable affordably using single-point data where traditional hydrological modelling is not feasible.

FIGURE 1: Positioning of the water level and rain gauge on the Palmiet River catchment

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FIGURE 2: Location of active monitoring sites within the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality INTRODUCTION Flooding is one of the most devastating natural hazards affecting South African municipalities. The KwaZulu-Natal floods of April 2022 resulted in over 400 fatalities and billions of rands in infrastructure damage, exposing critical gaps in municipal early warning capabilities (Dlamini et al. 2023). The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, encompassing Durban and surrounding areas, is particularly vulnerable due to its steep topography, rapid urbanisation, and subtropical climate producing intense convective rainfall events. Effective flood early warning systems are widely recognised as among the most cost-effective measures for reducing flood losses (UNDRR 2022). However, the implementation of such systems in South African municipalities faces significant barriers. Traditional hydrological models, such as HEC-HMS, MIKE SHE, or SWAT, require detailed catchment data, expert calibration, and ongoing maintenance that many local authorities cannot sustain (Smithers & Schulze 2002). The shortage of qualified hydrologists in municipal service further limits adoption. Even where models exist, they are often research tools that remain disconnected from real-time operational decision-making. Recent advances in low-cost environmental monitoring and openaccess weather forecast data create an opportunity to approach flood forecasting differently. Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensor networks now provide continuous, high-frequency water level and rainfall observations at a fraction of the cost of traditional gauging infrastructure (Mao et al. 2019). Meanwhile, services such as Open-Meteo aggregate outputs from major global numerical weather prediction (NWP) centres, including the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the United States National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global

Forecast System (GFS), and the United Kingdom Met Office (UKMO), and make them freely available via standardised application programming interfaces (APIs) (Open-Meteo 2025), eliminating a key data barrier for municipal applications. This paper presents research into the use of simple linear regression for water level forecasting in small urban catchments, using only singlepoint observations from one water level sensor and one rain gauge. The research investigates model accuracy across different training strategies and demonstrates the critical importance of including flood events in training data. It then describes the deployment of these findings into a live pilot system, publicly accessible at wxi.info, that tests the approach under real-time operational conditions using forecast rainfall from multiple NWP models. The objectives are to: (1) present the research methodology and findings; (2) describe the transition to operational pilot deployment; and (3) report initial operational results and their implications for municipal flood early warning.

STUDY AREA AND DATA SOURCES Study area The research was conducted on the Palmiet River in Durban, a fastresponding catchment serving a densely populated area including several informal settlements at elevated flood risk. Water level data was recorded at the Birdhurst site, with rainfall measured at a single upstream gauge in Pinetown (Figure 1). The proximity of these stations minimises lag between rainfall and river response, reinforcing the suitability of simplified modelling approaches. For the pilot phase, the system was expanded to two river sites within the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (Figure 2). The Mzinyathi River

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FIGURE 3: Positioning of the water level and rain gauge on the Mzinyathi River catchment is located in the northern eThekwini region and is characterised by a relatively responsive catchment with rapid runoff during rainfall events (Figure 3). The Palmiet River site continues from the research phase. Both sites are instrumented with single-point IoT monitoring stations, with one water level sensor and one rain gauge per site, recording at high temporal resolution.

hourly precipitation forecasts from eleven models, listed in Table 1. Each model provides forecasts for approximately seven days ahead. Forecasts are used as rainfall inputs to the water level prediction model, which is run independently for each weather model. An ensemble mean prediction is then computed as the simple average across all eleven model outputs. No API key is required and no cost is incurred.

Observed data Water level and rainfall observations are sourced from single-point IoT monitoring stations operated within the eThekwini municipal monitoring network. Each site is equipped with one water level sensor (typically pressure transducer) and one tipping-bucket rain gauge, both logging at sub-hourly intervals. No spatially distributed sensor networks or catchment-averaged data are required. Raw observations are resampled to hourly resolution. Water level values are aggregated as the maximum reading per hour, capturing peak conditions relevant to flood risk. Rainfall values are aggregated as the sum per hour, preserving total precipitation volumes. Invalid readings and sensor sentinel values are filtered during resampling.

TABLE 1: Numerical weather prediction models used for rainfall forecasting (pilot phase)

Rainfall data For the research phase, observed (measured) rainfall was used as input, allowing model accuracy to be assessed independently of rainfall forecast quality. For the pilot phase, forecast rainfall inputs are obtained from the Open-Meteo API (Open-Meteo 2025), a free, open-access service that aggregates outputs from major global NWP centres. The system ingests

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Model Best Match CMA GRAPES Global ECMWF AIFS ECMWF IFS 0.25°

Source centre Open-Meteo (auto-selected best) China Meteorological Administration ECMWF (AI-enhanced) ECMWF IFS (0.25° resolution)

ECMWF IFS

GFS Global

NCEP GFS

GFS Seamless

NCEP GFS Seamless

MET Norway Seamless NCEP AI-GFS NCEP HGEFS Ensemble Mean UKMO Global

Norwegian Meteorological Institute NCEP AI-GFS NCEP HGEFS ensemble mean UK Met Office

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS Model design The forecasting approach uses ordinary least squares linear regression with lagged input features. The predicted water level at time t is given by: ... (1) where is the intercept, are the learned coefficients, and are the input features. For the research phase, three input features were used: the previous hour’s water level (H_lag1), the current hour’s rainfall (R_t), and the previous hour’s rainfall (R_lag1). This minimal feature set was selected based on the physical reasoning that in small, steep catchments, the hydrological response to rainfall is near-immediate, and the water level at any given hour is primarily determined by the recent water level (representing baseline conditions and drainage) and the recent rainfall (representing inflow). Predicted values are clamped to a minimum of zero. The model produces multi-step forecasts through an iterative (recursive) procedure. Starting from the most recent observed water level and rainfall, the model predicts one hour ahead. This predicted value then becomes an input for the next prediction step. The process repeats for each hour of the forecast horizon, with each step’s output becoming the next step’s input. This simulates real-world operational conditions where only the initial water level and subsequent rainfall measurements are available. Training strategy investigation To assess the effect of training data composition on model performance, eight models were trained across four training durations (3, 6, 9, and 12 months) and two strategies: one excluding the April 2022 KwaZulu-Natal flood event from the training data, and one including it. All models were tested on an unseen four-week period (February–March 2025) using the iterative prediction approach described above. Research results Table 2 presents the research results across all training configurations. The effect of including the April 2022 flood event in the training data was substantial and consistent. Models trained with the April 2022 flood achieved R² values of 0.845– 0.854 and mean absolute errors (MAE) of 0.048–0.056 m, compared to R² values of 0.634–0.736 and MAE of 0.067–0.069 m for models trained without the flood. The best-performing configuration, a three-month

TABLE 2: Research results: model performance across training configurations Training strategy

Period

R²

MAE (m)

Bias (m)

Excluding April 2022 flood

3 months

0.634

0.069

−0.015

6 months

0.694

0.066

−0.021

9 months

0.689

0.070

−0.023

12 months

0.736

0.067

−0.026

3 months

0.854

0.048

−0.030

6 months

0.848

0.050

−0.033

9 months

0.845

0.054

−0.039

12 months

0.845

0.056

−0.042

Including April 2022 flood

training window including the flood event, achieved an R² of 0.854 and an MAE of 0.048 m. For models trained without flood data, performance improved steadily with longer training durations (R² from 0.634 at 3 months to 0.736 at 12 months), as longer windows provided greater exposure to the variability of normal flow conditions. For models trained with flood data, performance was strong across all durations, with the shorter windows slightly outperforming, likely because the flood event represented a larger proportion of the training data. Figure 4 illustrates the model performance during a representative rain event. Models trained with flood data closely track the observed water level rise and recession, while all four training durations produce similar predictions, confirming the robustness of the approach. Performance was also assessed during active rainfall periods only, since these are the conditions most relevant to flood warning. Flood-trained models maintained R² values above 0.80 even when evaluated exclusively on rainy hours. Bias analysis All models exhibited a consistent slight negative bias, indicating minor systematic underprediction. Models trained with flood data showed bias values of −0.030 to −0.042 m, while those without showed −0.015 to −0.026 m. During rainfall periods specifically, models trained without the flood exhibited positive bias (overprediction), while flood-trained models

FIGURE 4: Close-up of modelled versus observed water levels during a rain event (models trained with April 2022 flood data)

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maintained a mild negative bias, suggesting more stable and consistent performance under wet conditions.

• Palmiet River: H_lag1, H_lag3, R_t, R_lag3, R_lag4 (5 features, crossvalidated MAE = 0.012 m)

Key findings The research established three principal findings: 1. Simple linear regression using only three single-point input features can explain over 85% of the variance in water levels for small urban catchments, achieving MAE below 0.05 m over a four-week iterative test period. 2. Including significant flood events in the training data is critical. Without such events, models cannot adequately learn the rainfall-runoff response at higher water levels, resulting in substantially lower accuracy. 3. As little as three months of training data is sufficient to produce an accurate model, provided a flood event is captured, making the approach deployable within a single wet season of instrument installation. The critical open question remaining was whether these results, achieved with observed (measured) rainfall, would hold under operational conditions where forecast rainfall must be substituted.

Multi-model ensemble: Rather than relying on a single rainfall forecast, the system runs the prediction model independently with each of eleven NWP models’ rainfall forecasts, producing twelve forecast traces (eleven models plus an ensemble mean). This provides both a range of possible outcomes and a more robust central estimate.

PILOT PHASE: OPERATIONAL DEPLOYMENT System design To address the open question from the research phase, the model was deployed into a live operational system. Key adaptations for operational use included: Automated feature selection: The research used a fixed three-feature model. The operational system replaces this with an exhaustive grid search over all non-empty subsets of an expanded candidate feature space (water level lags H_lag1 through H_lag3 and rainfall terms R_t through R_lag4). Each combination is evaluated using five-fold time series cross-validation scored by MAE, and the optimal set is selected independently per site. The resulting feature sets are: • Mzinyathi River: H_lag1, H_lag2, R_lag1 (3 features, cross-validated MAE = 0.008 m)

Automated pipeline: An hourly scheduled task fetches observations, retrieves rainfall forecasts, generates predictions for each active site, and evaluates past forecast accuracy. If one site encounters a data source issue, the remaining sites continue unaffected. Sensor outage gap-filling: The system maintains operational continuity through automated gap-filling: using the model to estimate missing water levels from observed rainfall, rearranging the equation to estimate missing rainfall from observed water levels, or falling back to NWP hindcast data when both sensors are offline. All estimated values are flagged and automatically replaced when sensors recover. Public interface (Figure 5): The platform provides a community-facing view with a configurable flood threshold and warning banner. The flood threshold is user-adjustable, allowing community members to set it based on their local knowledge of river levels that begin to create challenges, such as inundation of low-lying areas or overtopping of bridges and crossings. These thresholds can be refined over time through observation and experience of flood events. When water level predictions from any model exceed the threshold, a warning banner is displayed. A technical dashboard provides per-model forecasts, ensemble averages, and accuracy statistics by forecast horizon. The platform is available in English, isiZulu, and isiXhosa, and is deployed as a progressive web application (PWA) that can be installed directly on mobile devices, improving accessibility for community users who may rely on smartphones as their primary means of accessing information.

FIGURE 5: Community-facing forecast view showing ensemble water level prediction, individual model traces, forecast rainfall, and configurable flood threshold

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TABLE 3: Pilot phase water level prediction accuracy by weather model (all horizons combined) MAE (m)

Bias (m)

Best Match

Weather model

0.050

+0.041

GFS Global

0.055

+0.046

GFS Seamless

0.055

+0.046

ECMWF IFS

0.057

+0.049

MET Norway

0.057

+0.049

CMA GRAPES

0.058

+0.049

ECMWF IFS 0.25°

0.058

+0.049

Ensemble Mean

0.059

+0.052

NCEP AI-GFS

0.062

+0.055

NCEP HGEFS

0.063

+0.056

UKMO

0.068

+0.059

ECMWF AIFS

0.076

+0.069

Initial operational results The results presented here are drawn from over three months of pilot operation, from March to June 2026. During this period, the system generated 3 930 hourly forecast runs across both sites (1 654 for the Mzinyathi River and 2 276 for the Palmiet River), producing over 2.8 million water level prediction-observation comparison pairs. Table 3 summarises the water level prediction accuracy across all forecast horizons and both sites. The overall MAE ranges from 0.050 m to 0.076 m, with the ensemble mean at 0.059 m. Table 4 presents the ensemble mean MAE by forecast horizon. Short-range forecasts (1–6 h) achieve a MAE of less than 2 cm. Even at extended horizons beyond 72 hours, the MAE remains below 7 cm, a level of accuracy that is operationally meaningful for flood preparedness. While the pilot period included moderate rainfall events that tested the model’s response characteristics, no extreme flood events comparable to the April 2022 disaster occurred. The evaluation therefore primarily reflects performance under normal to moderate conditions, and further evaluation during significant high-flow events is required to fully characterise operational accuracy. The operational results show a positive bias (over-prediction), contrasting with the negative bias observed in the research phase. This shift is attributable to the use of forecast rather than observed rainfall. The bias varies by site: the Mzinyathi River shows a consistent positive bias (+0.057 m), while the Palmiet River exhibits a slight negative bias (−0.034 m), indicating that bias characteristics are site-specific. Dependence on rainfall forecast quality The research demonstrated model accuracy using observed rainfall. A central objective of the pilot phase was to evaluate whether that accuracy would be maintained when forecast rainfall is substituted.

TABLE 4: Pilot phase ensemble mean water level MAE by forecast horizon Horizon band

MAE (m)

Bias (m)

1–6 h

0.019

+0.010

7–12 h

0.033

+0.023

13–24 h

0.044

+0.034

25–48 h

0.053

+0.045

49–72 h

0.060

+0.053

73 h+

0.067

+0.059

The results confirm that rainfall forecast quality is the dominant factor governing prediction accuracy at longer horizons. During dry periods, the autoregressive lag terms dominate the prediction, yielding low errors regardless of rainfall forecast quality. During rainfall events, discrepancies between predicted and actual rainfall propagate through the iterative prediction chain. This was anticipated, and it is the fundamental reason the system was designed around a multi-model ensemble rather than a single rainfall source.

DISCUSSION The research phase established that simple linear regression, using only three single-point input features, can produce accurate water level forecasts for small urban catchments when trained on observed data that includes significant flood events. The pilot phase demonstrates that these findings translate to operational conditions, with forecast accuracy that is operationally useful for flood early warning, particularly over the critical short-range horizons (1–24 hours) where municipal action is most effective. The multi-model ensemble approach provides practical advantages beyond raw accuracy. No single model consistently outperforms across all conditions, and model rankings shift between dry and wet periods and between sites. The ensemble averages out individual model biases, providing more stable performance over time. Divergence between model traces also provides an intuitive visual measure of forecast confidence. The multi-site architecture has been validated with two operational sites. Adding the Palmiet River site required only model training and a historical data backfill, with no changes to the application or forecast pipeline. This configuration-only scalability is significant for municipal adoption. Three key limitations should be acknowledged: 1. Training data requirements: Model accuracy is highly dependent on the variance present in the training data, specifically the inclusion of significant rainfall events. For new sites, sufficient data capturing the range of hydrological conditions must be accumulated before the model can be considered reliable. 2. Spatial resolution of rainfall forecasts: Global NWP models operate at grid resolutions of 10–25 km, while convective rainfall in KwaZuluNatal is highly localised. This spatial mismatch is a fundamental source of error for catchment-scale applications. The forecasting approach is likely most valid for small catchments where the contributing area falls within a single NWP grid cell, such that the grid-scale rainfall estimate reasonably approximates the catchment-average input. For larger or more spatially complex catchments, distributed rainfall inputs or downscaling techniques may be required to maintain forecast accuracy. 3. Early-stage pilot testing: The three-month pilot period represents the initial phase of operational evaluation. No events comparable in magnitude to the April 2022 floods have occurred during this period. The operational results should be considered preliminary, and continued evaluation across a wider range of conditions is required to fully characterise system performance (Hauswirth et al. 2023). CONCLUSIONS This paper has presented research into cost-effective flood forecasting using simple linear regression and the initial results from an operational pilot deployment. The key conclusions are: 1. Simple linear regression using only three single-point input features (previous water level, current rainfall, and previous rainfall) can explain over 85% of the variance in water levels for small urban catchments,

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achieving MAE below 0.05 m over a four-week iterative test period using observed rainfall. 2. Including significant flood events in the training data is critical to model accuracy. Models trained without the April 2022 flood achieved R² values of only 0.63–0.74, compared to 0.85 when the flood was included. As little as three months of data is sufficient if a flood event is captured. 3. Initial results from the pilot phase confirm that the approach delivers operationally useful forecasts under real-time conditions using NWP rainfall inputs. MAE remains below 2 cm for the first six hours and below 7 cm at extended horizons beyond 72 hours. 4. As anticipated, the quality of rainfall forecast inputs is the dominant factor governing prediction accuracy at longer horizons, confirming that the transition from observed to forecast rainfall is the critical challenge in operationalising this approach. 5. The system can be scaled to additional monitoring sites through configuration and model training alone, requiring only single-point instrumentation (one water level sensor and one rain gauge per site), making it accessible to resource-constrained municipalities. This work demonstrates that real-time flood forecasting is affordably achievable using single-point data with a minimum of three months’ worth of data during the rain season. Over time and with further testing and upscaling, this approach could also support communitylevel monitoring, extending its value beyond municipal forecasting functions. This will enable municipalities to meet their mandates with regard to the Disaster Management Act and to improve the resilience of their citizens.

RECOMMENDATIONS Based on the research and pilot phase experience, the following recommendations are made for municipalities considering similar systems: 1. Prioritise data collection that includes flood events: Model accuracy depends critically on capturing significant rainfall events in the training data. Municipalities should begin data collection as early as possible, ideally before the wet season, and retain all data from high-flow events. 2. Invest in observation quality: Well-maintained single-point monitoring stations with redundant communication pathways are the foundation of any operational forecasting system. Only one water level sensor and one rain gauge per site are required. 3. Adopt multi-model ensembles: No single weather model consistently outperforms across all conditions. Municipalities should leverage the free availability of multiple NWP outputs rather than relying on any single rainfall forecast source. 4. Communicate uncertainty transparently: Public-facing flood forecasting systems should present accuracy metrics alongside predictions, allowing users to calibrate their trust in forecasts at different lead times. 5. Plan for continued validation: Systems should be evaluated across a wide range of conditions, particularly significant flood events, before being relied upon for critical decision-making. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was commissioned by ICLEI Africa as part of a collaborative project with the eThekwini Municipality and UKZN, under the CLAREfunded ‘INACCT Resilience’ project. The eThekwini Municipality is gratefully acknowledged for providing access to their IoT monitoring network data, which made this work possible. Weather forecast data was provided free of charge by Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com).

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REFERENCES Dlamini T, Mohanty S & Worku Z 2023. The April 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods: A hydrometeorological assessment and implications for disaster risk reduction. South African Journal of Science 119(5/6): 1–9. Hauswirth SM, van der Wiel K, Bierkens MFP, Beijk V & Wanders N 2023. Simulating hydrological extremes for different warming levels– combining large scale climate ensembles with local observation based machine learning models. Frontiers in Water 5: 1108108. Mao F, Khamis K, Krause S, Clark J & Hannah DM 2019. Low-cost environmental sensor networks: Recent advances and future directions. Frontiers in Earth Science 7: 221. Open-Meteo 2025. Open-Meteo Free Weather API Documentation. Available at: https://open-meteo.com/en/docs (accessed 18 June 2026). Smithers JC & Schulze RE 2002. The role of hydrology in water resources management in South Africa. In: Schulze RE (ed.). Hydrology and Water Resources of KwaZulu-Natal. WRC Report TT 154/01, Water Research Commission, Pretoria. UNDRR 2022. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022: Our World at Risk — Transforming Governance for a Resilient Future. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva.

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PAPER 3

RETHINKING DESIGN COMPLIANCE: LESSONS LEARNED TO ENHANCE FLOOD RESILIENCE AND SAFETY

E G Braune1, M B Wiese2, I F Malherbe3 Senior Engineer (MSAICE, MIMESA), Stormwater, AECOM SA Pty (Ltd) 2 Principal Engineer (MSAICE), Stormwater, AECOM SA Pty (Ltd) 3 Senior Associate Director (MSAICE), Water Resources, AECOM SA Pty (Ltd)

ABSTRACT South Africa has well-developed flood risk management guidance, yet severe flooding continues to impact municipalities. Flood events, including the 2022 floods in Durban, 2023 floods in the Western Cape and recent 2026 flood events effecting Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape have highlighted the growing vulnerability of urban areas and the scale of flood-related impacts. While technical resources for flood estimation and stormwater design are well established, designing infrastructure for a specified design flood does not equate to safety, particularly during larger events. The gap lies in how these guidelines are translated into holistic municipal flood planning and management, especially in environments characterised by inherited infrastructure constraints and changing catchment characteristics. This implementation gap has become apparent through the experience gained from numerous flood studies undertaken within the consulting industry and is illustrated in this paper through two case studies representing different development contexts. The first considers a residential area affected by recurring flooding linked to historical agricultural alterations to the river system dating back to the late 1800s. The second examines an industrial area developed on a historically diverted river floodplain, where exceedance of the diversion infrastructure resulted in severe flooding during recent extreme events. Across both cases, common challenges include cumulative catchment changes due to urbanisation, insufficient consideration of historical floodplain behaviour and a lack of clear understanding and communication of risks associated with flood events exceeding the design standard. Lessons learned from previous studies, augmented by these two case studies, highlight the need for a more holistic approach to managing fluvial (riverine) flood risk beyond compliance with design standards, with specific consideration of residual risk within the broader river system. These insights are synthesised into a practical questions-based framework which municipalities can apply in scoping flood studies, interrogating system-wide risks, and identifying potential “weak points” within river catchments. The framework encourages improved alignment between flood risk assessment, infrastructure planning, and land-use decision-making. By shifting the focus beyond design compliance towards system-wide resilience, the questions-based framework aims to bridge the gap between existing guidance and practical implementation, ultimately rethinking public safety during major flood events. 1. INTRODUCTION Flooding remains one of the most significant natural hazards affecting South Africa, impacting communities, infrastructure, agriculture, industry

and municipal services. Recent flood disasters have resulted in substantial economic losses, disruption of essential services and loss of life (Mahlangu, et al., 2025). The 2022 KZN floods (Byaruhanga, et al., 2025) highlighted the devastating consequences of extreme flooding on urban environments, while subsequent flood events earlier in 2026 in the Western and Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo further demonstrated the vulnerability of municipalities to large-scale fluvial (riverine) flooding. South Africa has developed a range of guidelines and manuals for flood estimation, stormwater design and flood risk management. The wellknown guidelines include but are not limited to: • The Red Book: Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guide (Department of Human Settlements, 2019) • SANRAL Drainage Manual (South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), 2013) • Best Practice Guideline for Design Flood Estimation in Municipal Areas in South Africa (Brooker, et al., 2023) • Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) for South Africa: Framework and Guidelines (Armitage, et al., 2014) These guidelines provide valuable tools for estimating flood magnitudes and designing infrastructure to manage various levels of risk, while also emphasising the assessment of exceedance events and the need to understand and manage residual flood risk. Nevertheless, municipalities continue to experience significant flood damage and safety risks during major flood events owing to a combination of factors, including changing catchment conditions, limitations in the implementation of holistic flood risk management, and the increasing occurrence of severe rainfall events. The consequences of flooding become particularly severe where urban development has altered natural river systems and floodplains. Catchments evolve over time through urbanisation, land-use change, infrastructure expansion and historical modifications to river systems. During larger flood events, rivers may overtop their banks, reactivate historical floodplain flow paths and interact with urban areas in ways that were not anticipated during the original design of infrastructure. Critical facilities, transport routes and municipal services can therefore be exposed to flood hazards that extend beyond the design assumptions of individual structures. Understanding the impacts of flood events, which exceeds typical design flood frequencies, provides municipalities with an opportunity to identify system vulnerabilities (weak points), assess potential consequences and implement measures that improve public safety and resilience. Assessing these events does not imply designing every asset for the largest conceivable flood; rather, it enables municipalities to better understand where the greatest risks exist and where interventions may provide the greatest benefit be it structural or systemic. This paper investigates these challenges through two fluvial floodrelated case studies representing different development contexts. The lessons learned are synthesised into a practical questions-based framework which demonstrates how municipalities can identify weak points, prioritise interventions and support more holistic flood management. By

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understanding what happens when flood events exceed design assumptions, awareness assists the municipalities in moving beyond compliance-based planning towards more resilient and safer communities through systems thinking. Mitigation strategies can be developed to manage the residual risk of river systems, increasing public safety and resilience of infrastructure.

2. KEY CONCEPTS ON HOLISTIC FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT 2.1 Flood risk Flood risk is commonly defined as a function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, as illustrated in Figure 1. Hazard represents the likelihood and severity of flooding, exposure reflects the people, infrastructure and assets located within the flood-prone area, and vulnerability describes their susceptibility to damage or disruption (Ferguson, et al., 2023). Flood risk depends not only on the probability and magnitude of a flood, but also on its consequences, which are influenced by factors such as flood depth, velocity and rate of onset. Although structural measures can reduce flood hazards by lowering flood levels or increasing conveyance capacity, land-use change, urbanisation, climate variability and inadequate maintenance can increase both flood hazard and the exposure of people and assets, particularly within historical floodplains. Effective flood risk management therefore requires consideration of both the flood hazard and the potential consequences of flooding across the broader river system. (ARR, 2019; Smith et al., 2014). 2.2 Design flood risk Flood risk management in South Africa is largely based on the estimation of design flood events FIGURE 1: Defining flood risk for infrastructure planning and (Wiese and King, 2025) design. Guidance such as the Best Practice Guideline for Design Flood Estimation in Municipal Areas in South Africa (Brooker, et al., 2023) provides methodologies for estimating floodmagnitudes associated with specified probabilities of occurrence, or return periods, and supports the design of stormwater infrastructure, bridges and culverts. The design flood approach remains a practical and essential tool for managing flood hazard within municipalities. Even though a design flood defines the risk acceptable for specific infrastructure or assets, this should not be interpreted as a guarantee of public safety. Infrastructure designed for a specified return period remains vulnerable to larger flood events, and the consequences of exceedance can be significant. Design standards therefore manage flood risk to an acceptable level, but do not eliminate flood risk entirely (South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), 2013), as illustrated in Figure 2. Ultimately, engineering for a specific flood threshold manages the likelihood of an event, but it does not eliminate the severe consequences of a larger, unprecedented disaster. 2.3 Residual flood risk Residual flood risk refers to the risk that remains after flood mitigation measures (Items B and C in Figure 2) have been implemented, where flooding exceeds the design recurrence interval. Increased residual risk may arise from infrastructure deterioration, inadequate maintenance, changing catchment characteristics or unforeseen system interactions. Understanding residual risk shifts the focus from whether infrastructure meets a design standard to what happens when that standard is

exceeded, ultimately aiding proactive flood preparedness and reaction. Assessing larger flood events helps municipalities identify vulnerable infrastructure, critical facilities and potential consequences, providing a basis for emergency planning, prioritisation of upgrades and improved public safety. 2.4 Systems thinking (Design for failure) Flooding is a catchment-scale process influenced by the interaction of river systems, stormwater infrastructure, land use, development patterns and environmental conditions. A systemsthinking approach recognises that the performance of individual structures cannot be considered in isolation from the broader river and catchment system. This approach aligns with principles promoted in the Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) Framework and Guidelines (Armitage, et al., 2014), which encourage integrated planning across disciplines. Understanding how changes in one part of a catchment influence flood behaviour elsewhere FIGURE 2: Risk classifications can assist municipalities in identifying system vulnerabilities, managing cumulative impacts and improving longterm flood resilience. 2.5 Flood resilience Flood resilience refers to the ability of a system to withstand, respond to and recover from flood events. While traditional flood management often focuses on preventing flooding, resilience recognises that some flooding will occur and seeks to reduce the associated consequences. Resilience can be improved through a combination of structural measures, such as infrastructure upgrades and flood attenuation, and non-structural measures, including floodplain management, land-use planning, early warning systems and emergency preparedness. Understanding the impacts of larger flood events enables municipalities to prioritise interventions that improve safety, reduce damages and support faster recovery following major floods. These concepts highlight the importance of moving beyond design compliance towards a broader understanding of flood consequences, system vulnerabilities and residual risk. The selected case studies showcase challenges that the municipalities are faced with during flood events exceeding the design flood event and how a number of practices involving the abovementioned concepts, can play an invaluable role in mitigating severe consequences and improving flood resilience.

3. METHODOLOGY AND CASE STUDY SELECTION The proposed questions-based framework was informed by lessons learned from a range of flood studies and case study investigations. For this paper, two recent flood events are presented as example case studies: Stellenbosch

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FIGURE 3: Case Study Assessment Approach Municipality – La Cotte River, Franschhoek and Prospecton, Durban. These case studies represent common flood management challenges faced by municipalities and demonstrate how flood risk can emerge when larger flood events interact with modified river systems, changing catchment characteristics and existing infrastructure constraints. Each case study is presented in terms of the (1) flooding mechanism, (2) contributing factors, (3) consequences and (4) proposed mitigation measure, as illustrated in Figure 3. 3.1 CASE STUDY 1: STELLENBOSCH MUNICIPALITY – LA COTTE RIVER FLOODING 3.1.1 Flooding Mechanism Stellenbosch Municipality and specifically Franschhoek experienced significant fluvial flood events during June and September 2023. The September event caused the most severe flooding in recent history. The September flood was associated with a cut-off low weather system that produced a rainfall event with cumulative rainfall exceeding the 1:200year design rainfall depth over a total 41 hours, while antecedent rainfall had already saturated the catchment (AECOM, 2024). Landslides and modifications in the upper catchment generated significant sediment loads, further reducing the capacity of the river system and contributing to widespread flooding within residential, commercial and industrial areas.

FIGURE 4: September 2023 flood simulation - upstream of urban area modified from AECOM (2024)

3.1.2 Contributing Factors The flood exposed vulnerabilities within a modified river system and historical floodplain. Historical evidence suggests that portions of the natural floodplain and river system had been modified over time, including agricultural alterations which redirected the historic main flow channel of the La Cotte River to an alternative flow path, which is located at a higher elevation than the original river channel. During larger flood FIGURE 5: September 2023 flood validation - De Eike farm events, overtopping and breaches of the riverbanks results in floodwaters (screenshot from: Smit, 2023, 2:42) leaving the modified river channel and diverting back to the original river channel (referred to as the secondary system) further downstream (AECOM, 2024). Key factors contributing to flood risk included: • Historical floodplain and river modifications; • Overtopping and breaches allowing flow into the secondary system; • Undersized hydraulic infrastructure; • Sharp river bends increasing turbulence, scour and overtopping potential; • Urban development within the historical floodplain; FIGURE 6: Cross-section between La Cotte River and Secondary system (looking downstream)

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• Encroachment along riverbanks; • Catchment changes associated with urbanisation and upstream landuse change; and • Sediment deposition in the stormwater system due to landslides and upstream land modifications. Hydraulic assessments, corroborated by evidence from the September 2023 flood, demonstrated that the river system was unable to contain flood flows throughout much of its urban extent. This highlighted vulnerabilities that were not apparent from isolated infrastructure assessments. 3.1.3 Consequences The flooding caused extensive damage to private property, municipal infrastructure, businesses and transport routes. Significant scour, erosion and channel changes occurred throughout the river system. The event demonstrated how historical floodplain modifications and evolving catchment conditions can increase flood risk and expose vulnerabilities beyond those identified through conventional infrastructure assessments. 3.1.4 Mitigation Measures The flood mitigation strategy extended beyond upgrading individual structures and instead considered the behaviour of the entire river system during larger flood events. Hydraulic modelling was used to identify flood pathways, overtopping locations, breach mechanisms and interactions between the La Cotte River and the secondary system (AECOM, 2025). The systems-based assessment informed a range of interventions aimed at improving flood resilience throughout the urban river corridor, including: • Increasing the capacity of critical river reaches and hydraulic structures; • Strengthening berms to limit flow diversion into the secondary system; • Realigning sharp river bends to reduce scour and overtopping; • Creating engineered floodplain areas to safely convey larger flood events; • Establishing controlled overland flow routes for exceedance events; • Implementing minimum floor levels for vulnerable developments; • Protecting critical infrastructure exposed to residual flood risk; and • Creating awareness of flooding within community. While a preferred solution would have conveyed larger flood events through the urban area, significant constraints associated with existing development, roads, services, property boundaries, environmental considerations and heritage features limited what could realistically be achieved. As a result, the conceptual design was developed to substantially improve the hydraulic performance of the existing river system within these practical constraints. The assessment therefore incorporated residual risk management principles, recognising that flood events exceeding the design capacity would still occur. Proposed measures therefore aimed to reduce the consequences of exceedance events. Community engagement formed an integral part of the study and contributed significantly to understanding historical flood behaviour, floodplain dynamics and local constraints. Discussions with residents and landowners highlighted community concerns, historical river modifications and areas known to flood during larger events. Beyond informing the conceptual design, the process improved awareness of

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FIGURE 7: Photos from the October 2017 flood showing (a) disruption of traffic on the N2 and (b) damage to rail infrastructure how the broader flood system functions and where residual risks remain. The resulting strategy therefore combined structural and non-structural measures to improve flood resilience, recognising that public safety depends not only on infrastructure upgrades but also on understanding, preparing for and managing flood events that exceed the design standard (AECOM, 2025). 3.2 CASE STUDY 2: INDUSTRIAL FLOODPLAIN DEVELOPMENT 3.2.1 Flood mechanisms The Prospecton industrial area in Durban experienced three major flood events in October 2017, April 2019, and April 2022, with the April 2022 event causing the most severe damage in the region’s recent history. The 2017 and 2019 events were characterised by intense, localised downpours within the immediate catchment draining towards the Isipingo Estuary. Surface water runoff exceeded the capacity of the bulk drainage canals, resulting in flooding across the flat, low-lying terrain, as shown in Figure 7. In contrast, the catastrophic April 2022 event was associated with an extreme, regional rainfall system over the Mlazi River catchment. This system resulted in runoff exceeding the capacity of historical diversion infrastructure, causing a major structural breach. The resulting floodwaters, carrying heavy sediment loads from upstream failures, reverted to the river’s historical natural flow path, inundating heavily industrialised zones under rapidly rising water levels, as shown in Figure 8.

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FIGURE 8: Sediment laden flow during the April 2022 flood from (a) aerial imagery from Google Earth and (b) photos taken by eThekwini Municipality at the diversion breach 3.2.2 Contributing factors These flooding events exposed vulnerabilities introduced by large-scale historical modifications to the natural river systems. During the 1960s, the Mlazi and Isipingo Rivers were artificially diverted to unlock the wide, flat floodplains near the Isipingo Estuary for industrial development, as shown in Figure 9. The Mlazi River was redirected north into a concrete canal, while the Isipingo River was diverted to the south towards the Mbokodweni River. These interventions fundamentally altered the catchment’s hydraulic dynamics. The reduction of natural river flow into the Isipingo Estuary compromised its natural “flushing” mechanism, severely restricting its capacity to discharge flood volumes during severe weather events. Furthermore, the flat, low-lying topography of the historical floodplain limits the hydraulic head and gradient required for the local stormwater network to drain efficiently during local downpours. Hydraulic assessments indicated that the historical diversion structures did not adequately account for overtopping dynamics or residual risk during events exceeding their original design return periods.

Key factors contributing to the flood risk included: • Historical floodplain and river modifications: Structural separation of the rivers from their natural catchments; • Urban and industrial development within a high-hazard historical floodplain; • Overtopping and structural breaches of the Mlazi diversion infrastructure, forcing flow back into original paths; • Rapid onset of floodwaters following the infrastructure breach, severely limiting early-warning reaction times; • Insufficient scour protection downstream of the primary Mlazi diversion structure; • Absence of dedicated overland flow routes to safely manage and convey flood volumes exceeding the design capacity of the canal system; and • Impeded estuarine drainage due to long-term siltation and loss of natural tidal flushing. 3.2.3 Consequences The flood events highlighted a significant accumulation of “inherited” residual risk stemming from the mid-century river diversions. During all three events, the flat terrain caused prolonged inundation, halting operations at major economic and manufacturing hubs for periods ranging from weeks to months. While the high-velocity run-off from the steeper adjacent Isipingo Hills caused structural damage to infrastructure and private properties, the lower-velocity, deep-water inundation within the Prospecton basin crippled critical supply chains. The April 2022 breach exacerbated these impacts by depositing vast volumes of sediment across the industrial zone. Additionally, major linear infrastructure developed within the historical floodplain—such as the N2 highway corridor—acted as physical hydraulic barriers, altering natural drainage pathways and inadvertently concentrating flood levels in surrounding areas. These events demonstrated that isolated infrastructure upgrades would not provide sufficient mitigation when historical modifications have fundamentally compromised the broader hydrological system.

FIGURE 9: Historical flow regime (modified from AECOM, 2019)

3.2.4 Mitigation Measures Since the October 2017 flood event, AECOM (2019) conducted a flood level assessment for the Prospecton area confirming that the proposed flood mitigation strategy should shift away from localised infrastructure

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fixes, and instead focus on a systems-based management approach. This study utilised hydraulic modelling to evaluate the complex hydraulic interactions within the Prospecton area and surroundings, as well as quantifying the impact of various mitigation measures. The resulting conceptual strategy combines structural interventions, such as an additional sea outfall, attenuation within Isipingo Hills, upgrading the existing bulk stormwater canals, and an additional flood relief canal, with non-structural measures, including eThekwini’s existing flood early warning system, recognising that absolute protection against extreme exceedance events is highly unlikely due to dense industrial development and the “inherited” risk. Furthermore, studies by AECOM (2022) and Royal HaskoningDHV (2024) highlighted that scour protection measures at the Mlazi flow diversion structure would significantly reduce flood volumes during events exceeding the design return period, as well as the rapid rise of floodwaters caused by the breach wave and associated sediment load. This would greatly diminish the damage caused by these types of flood events (Wiese and King, 2025). Finally, the sharing of the flood dynamics, hazard areas and potential risks with the stakeholders in the area allowed for improving flood preparedness plans and associated management of residual flood risks.

4. CROSS CUTTING LESSONS LEARNED These two case studies highlight some real-world lessons when it comes to flood risk management. The common themes emerging from the case studies are summarised in Table 1. Although the specific flood mechanisms differed, both cases revealed recurring challenges associated with historical floodplain modification, evolving catchment conditions, residual risk and the limitations of isolated engineering interventions. These shared lessons provided the basis for identifying the key themes of the proposed questions-based framework, namely understanding the river system, continuously assessing flood risk, adopting a systemsthinking approach and building long-term flood resilience. 5. QUESTIONS-BASED FRAMEWORK FOR HOLISTIC FLUVIAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Design compliance is only one part of achieving flood resilience and public safety. Building on the cross-cutting lessons identified from actual flood events, such as those presented in the case studies, a questions-based

municipal flood review framework was developed to assist municipalities in moving beyond infrastructure-focused design towards holistic fluvial flood management. Rather than prescribing additional design standards, the framework encourages critical thinking by guiding municipal officials, planners and engineers through a structured sequence of questions that consider the broader river system, residual flood risk and opportunities to improve resilience. The framework is organised around the four interconnected components identified in the cross-cutting lessons learned: (1) Understanding the River System, (2) Understanding Flood Risk, (3) Managing Flood Risk through Systems Thinking, and (4) Building Municipal Resilience. Each component consists of practical questions that can be answered with a simple Yes or No. A negative response indicates a potential gap requiring further investigation or action, while a positive response confirms that an important aspect of holistic flood management has been considered. Each question is linked to suggested municipal actions and the intended municipal benefits, enabling decision-makers to progress from identifying vulnerabilities to implementing appropriate structural and non-structural interventions. In this way, the framework provides a practical review process that complements existing flood design guidance by encouraging systems thinking, improving interdepartmental collaboration, managing residual flood risk and ultimately strengthening public safety and municipal flood resilience.

6. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS Design standards remain an essential foundation for flood risk management; however, the case studies demonstrate that compliance alone cannot guarantee public safety during extreme fluvial flood events. Historical modifications to river systems, ongoing catchment change and the inherent residual risk associated with exceedance events necessitate a broader, systems-based approach. The proposed questions-based framework provides a practical means for municipalities to identify vulnerabilities, interrogate residual risk and integrate flood considerations into planning, infrastructure management and emergency preparedness. It is therefore recommended that municipalities incorporate the framework into the scoping and review of flood studies, regularly reassess flood risk as catchments evolve, and combine structural interventions with nonstructural measures such as land-use controls, maintenance programmes, community awareness and emergency response planning. By moving

TABLE 1: Summary of Lessons Learned Lessons learned

Framework strategy

It cannot be assumed that historical alterations have permanently modified the natural hydrology. The reality of “hydraulic memory” is that a river can divert back to its natural flow path.

An understanding of the river system is essential.

Risk is not static; it evolves based on historical development choices, climate extremes, and changes to the catchment.

Changing conditions necessitates the continuous assessment of the flood risk.

Isolated engineering solutions could fail during major regional events. Effective flood mitigation solutions and risk management requires an interconnected, catchmentwide strategy.

Managing flood risk requires a larger picture or systems thinking approach.

Exceedance flooding will occur despite compliance with design standards and protection based on specific design flood events.

Build resilience through a combination of structural and nonstructural measures, preparedness, and community awareness to enhance pro-active recovery planning.

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Practical Review Framework for Holistic Flood Management

Key questions to support holistic flood management beyond the design flood QUESTION

Understand the River System

Have historical flow paths and flood events been considered?

POSSIBLE ACTIONS

BENEFIT

• Review regional topography • Review historic aerial photography and historical flood records • Engage with landowners and stakeholders

Understanding inherited flood risk and historical floodplain behaviour

• Revise catchment hydrology • Evaluate land-use changes • Update 1:100-year floodlines

Understanding impacts of catchment evolution on floodlines

• Map exceedance flood extents • Assess higher return periods • Map and evaluate PMF/RMF where applicable

Understanding floodplain extent and potential impact on surrounding areas

• Identify system weak points • Identify overtopping locations • Identify breach locations • Prepare flood hazard maps

Understanding residual risk and consequences through hazard mapping

• Identify critical infrastructure • Assess interactions between rivers, roads and stormwater systems • Identify river altering structures

Evaluating the consequences to critical infrastructure and floodplain developments

Yes

Have the 1:100-year floodlines been reviewed and updated in the past five years?

Yes

Have flood events exceeding the design standard been assessed and mapped?

Assess Flood Risk

Yes Have consequences of flood events exceeding the design standard been identified?

Yes

Have river corridor interactions and critical infrastructure dependencies been assessed?

Yes

Proceed to "Managing Flood Risk- Systems Thinking" (next page)

FIGURE 10 A: Questions-based framework for holistic flood management

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Managing Flood Risk - Systems Thinking

Preceeded by "Assess Flood Risk" (previous page)

Has infrastructure been designed to safely accommodate and reduce risk during exceedance events?

• Design for safe failure • Manage overtopping pathways • Identify maintenance bottlenecks

• Assess infrastructure interdependencies • Preserve floodplain conveyance corridors • Undertake integrated flood assessments

• Design for infrastructure in the floodplain to increase resilience • Develop flood warning systems • Prepare emergency response measures

• Engage affected communities • Facilitate interdepartmental collaboration • Develop flood response procedures

- Improving flood awareness - Improving emergency preparedness

• Communicate residual flood risk • Identify evacuation routes • Inform planning and development decisions

- Supporting informed decision-making during planning - Increasing public safety

Reducing consequences during larger flood events

Yes

Have upstream, downstream and catchment-wide influences been considered?

-Designing for integrated system -Practicing holistic catchment planning - Maintaining floodplain conveyance corridors

Yes

Have structural and non structural mitigation measures been evaluated?

- Implementing structural interventions to manage flood waters - Implementing nonstructural interventions to improve information sharing

Improve Flood Resilience

Yes

Have key stakeholders, relevant departments and the community been engaged?

Yes

Has residual flood risk been communicated to decision-makers and affected communities?

Yes

Safer and more resilient communities through holistic flood risk management FIGURE 10 B: Questions-based framework for holistic flood management

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beyond compliance towards resilience-focused, catchment-scale decisionmaking, municipalities can significantly enhance the safety and adaptability of their communities in the face of future flood events.

7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the project teams involved in the case studies, whose expertise and commitment were instrumental to the success of these projects. The support and collaboration of Stellenbosch Municipality, eThekwini Municipality and Toyota South Africa Motors are also sincerely appreciated. 8. REFERENCES AECOM, 2019. Investigation of Flooding Risk at TSAM Durban Plant, Durban: Toyota South Africa Motors. AECOM, 2023. Worcester Eastern Bypass: Concept and Viability Report, Cape Town: Western Cape Government: Chief Directorate: Road Programme Management, Transport Infrastructure. AECOM, 2024. Investigation of Flood Risk Mitigation Measures at TSAM Durban Plant, Durban: Toyota South Africa Motors. AECOM, 2023. Worcester Eastern Bypass Drainage Report, Cape Town: Western Cape Government, Chief Directorate: Road Programme Management, Transport Infrastructure . AECOM, 2024. La Cotte River Flood Assessment, Cape Town: Stellenbosch Municipality. AECOM, 2025. La Cotte River Mitigation-Concept Designs to Increase River Capacity, Cape Town: Stellenbosch Municipality. Armitage, N. et al., 2014. Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) for South Africa: Framework and Guidelines, Pretoria: Water Research Commission. Brooker, C. et al., 2023. A Best Practice Guideline for Design Flood Estimation In Municipal Areas in South Africa, Pretoria: Water Research Commission. Byaruhanga, N., Kibirige, D. & Mkhonta, G., 2025. Understanding South Africa’s Flood Vulnerabilities and Resilience Pathways: A Comprehensive Overview. Water, 2608(https://doi.org/10.3390/), p. 17. Department of Human Settlements, 2019. The Red Book: The Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guide. Version 1.1 ed. Pretoria: South African Government. Ferguson, S. et al., 2023. Urban Flood Risk Handbook: Assessing Risk and Indentifying Interventions. 1st ed. Washington: The World Bank. Mahlangu, Z., Okedi, J. & Vermeulen, A., 2025. Assessing the effectiveness of emergency preparedness plans during flooding in South Africa. Civil Engineering: Water Engineering, 33(8), pp. 46-49. Royal HaskoningDHV, 2024. Economic Flood Risk Assessment South Durban Basin (Prospecton), Durban: Netherlands Enterprise Agency. South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), 2013. Drainage Manual. 6th ed. Pretoria: SANRAL. Wiese, M. & King, K., 2025. Sustainability of Flood Studies: From inundation mapping to holistic risk management in Prospecton, Durban. East London, IMESA.

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PAPER 4

FROM STRATEGY TO IMPLEMENTATION: ENABLING MEASURABLE PERFORMANCE IN THE ETHEKWINI WATER & SANITATION TURNAROUND STRATEGY Truman Hardon¹ and Roxanne Canny² eThekwini Water & Sanitation Unit

ABSTRACT Urban water and sanitation services in South Africa face increasing pressure from aging infrastructure, financial constraints, climate change, and growing service delivery demands. Metropolitan municipalities play a critical role in sustaining economic growth and reliable service provision; however, many trading services continue to decline due to underinvestment, operational inefficiencies, and governance challenges. In response, National Treasury introduced the Trading Services Reform Strategy (TSRS), requiring municipalities to implement structured turnaround strategies supported by institutional, financial, and operational reforms. The eThekwini Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) developed a Turnaround Strategy, subsequently amended to align to the National Treasury framework and approved by Council in April 2023, providing a roadmap to stabilise the utility and restore sustainable service delivery. This paper builds on previous work presented at the 2025 IMESA conference, which focused on the development and conceptual foundation of the Turnaround Strategy, and presents the implementation journey and lessons learned. It examines the implementation phase, with particular emphasis on the Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP) as the central mechanism for driving reform, together with the key challenges and lessons emerging from operationalising the strategy. The A3-PIAP consolidates commitments from the TAS, the Institutional Reform Roadmap (A1), and the Business and Investment Plan (A2) into a framework of measurable performance indicators aligned with National Treasury requirements and integrated within municipal governance, budgeting, and Council reporting cycles. The PIAP establishes minimum commitments and performance indicators across accountability, financial, and operational pillars, enabling tracking of governance reforms, revenue improvements, and operational performance enhancements, including non-revenue water reduction and improved service reliability. The paper outlines the approach adopted by EWS to operationalise the PIAP framework, presenting early implementation progress, key challenges related to financial modelling for sustainability, budgetary and grant constraints, and governance alignment, as well as lessons learned. The experience of eThekwini demonstrates how performance monitoring frameworks can enable the transition from strategic planning to measurable operational improvements, providing insights for other municipalities seeking to strengthen governance and financial sustainability. 1. INTRODUCTION The National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme requires metropolitan municipalities to strengthen the governance, financial sustainability and operational performance of their trading services through an integrated reform approach. In response, eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) developed and obtained Council

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approval for its Turnaround Strategy (TAS) as the strategic roadmap to guide the transformation of the Municipality’s water and sanitation utility. The approval of the TAS marked the transition from strategic planning to implementation. Delivering on the objectives of the strategy required more than the development of supporting plans; it required an integrated implementation framework capable of coordinating institutional reform, governance, financial planning, organisational change and operational performance. This approach aligns with the intent of the National Treasury MTSR Programme by ensuring that strategic objectives are translated into measurable organisational actions and monitored through a structured performance management process. Building on the work presented in the 2025 IMESA publication titled “Development of the eThekwini Water and Sanitation Turnaround Strategy”, this paper focuses on the implementation phase of the reform programme. Particular emphasis is placed on the Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP) as the mechanism used to coordinate implementation, monitor progress and drive continuous improvement across the utility. The paper discusses the implementation approach adopted by EWS, highlights progress achieved during the first phase of implementation, examines the challenges encountered and reflects on practical lessons that may assist other municipalities undertaking similar utility reform programmes.

2. FROM STRATEGY TO IMPLEMENTATION: OPERATIONALISING THE MTSR PROGRAMME The approval of the eThekwini Water and Sanitation Turnaround Strategy (TAS) represented a significant milestone in the Municipality’s response to the National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme. While the previous IMESA paper described the development of the Turnaround Strategy and the rationale for reform, the approval of the strategy marked the beginning of a far more challenging phase: implementation. Translating strategic intent into measurable organisational change required more than a strategic vision; it required an integrated implementation framework capable of aligning governance, institutional reform, financial sustainability and operational performance. The MTSR Programme recognises that sustainable utility reform cannot be achieved through isolated projects or short-term interventions. Instead, it requires municipalities to establish the institutional, financial and governance foundations necessary to support long-term organisational transformation. In response, eThekwini Water and Sanitation adopted an integrated implementation approach that aligned with the National Treasury reform methodology and provided a structured pathway from strategy development to implementation. The implementation framework comprised five complementary components, each fulfilling a distinct but interconnected role within the reform programme: • Institutional Reform Roadmap (A1): providing the governance and organisational reform pathway required to establish a ring-fenced, performance-driven business unit.

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• Business and Investment Plan (A2): translating the strategic objectives of the Turnaround Strategy into prioritised investment programmes, service delivery initiatives and long-term infrastructure planning. • Financial Business Model: evaluating the long-term affordability and financial sustainability of the proposed reforms through scenario modelling and investment testing, thereby informing strategic decisionmaking and funding requirements. • Change Management Plan: supporting organisational transition, stakeholder engagement and the development of a culture capable of sustaining reform. • Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP): establishing the implementation, monitoring and performance management framework through which progress could be measured, reviewed and continuously improved. Rather than functioning as independent planning documents, these implementation instruments were designed to operate as an integrated management system. Collectively, they connected strategic planning with governance reform, financial planning, organisational development and operational performance, ensuring that implementation activities remained aligned with the objectives of the Turnaround Strategy and the broader National Treasury MTSR Programme.

FIGURE 1: Turnaround Strategy Implementation Framework by eThekwini Water and Sanitation

The first year of implementation focused on establishing these enabling foundations. This included developing the institutional arrangements required for Single Point of Management Accountability (SPoMA), progressing the organisational restructuring necessary to support the future business unit, completing the Business and Investment Plan and Financial Business Model, establishing baseline performance measures, and developing the Performance Improvement Action Plan to guide implementation over the remaining programme period. These activities were not simply planning exercises; they represented the foundational work required before meaningful financial and operational improvements could be achieved. Figure 1 illustrates the integrated implementation framework adopted by eThekwini Water and Sanitation, demonstrating how the various implementation instruments collectively operationalise the National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform Programme.

3. OPERATIONALISING PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT ACROSS THE UTILITY The transition from strategic planning to implementation required more than the development of supporting plans and governance structures. It required the establishment of a structured performance management system capable of translating objectives into measurable action. Within the National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme, this role is fulfilled by the Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3PIAP), which provides the framework through which reform activities are prioritised, implemented, monitored and continuously refined. Rather than functioning as a conventional implementation plan, the PIAP establishes an integrated performance management system that links governance, financial sustainability and operational performance. It provides a structured mechanism for translating the objectives of the Turnaround Strategy into measurable commitments, implementation activities and performance indicators, while maintaining alignment with the Institutional Reform Roadmap, Business and Investment Plan, Financial Business Model and Change Management Plan. In doing so, the PIAP becomes the central mechanism through which the objectives of the Turnaround Strategy are operationalised across the utility. 3.1 Establishing The Foundations For Reform A distinguishing feature of the MTSR implementation methodology is that organisational reform is not assessed solely through service delivery outcomes. Before municipalities are evaluated against broader accountability, financial and operational performance measures, they are first required to demonstrate that a series of Minimum Commitments (M1–M8) have been achieved. These commitments establish the governance, institutional and management foundations necessary to support sustainable reform and provide confidence that the organisation is appropriately structured to deliver long-term improvement. Within EWS, implementation of the Minimum Commitments has included the introduction of Single Point of Management Accountability (SPoMA), organisational restructuring to support the future ring-fenced business unit, strengthened governance arrangements, service compacts, procurement transparency measures and the development of the core planning and financial instruments required under the MTSR Programme. While implementation presented challenges, particularly in aligning National Treasury reform requirements with existing municipal governance and regulatory processes, these issues were progressively resolved through collaborative engagement, enabling implementation to continue without compromising the overall reform programme.

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These measures represent a transition from existing municipal arrangements towards the more integrated operating model required by the reform programme. For example, the establishment of SPoMA arrangements is intended to provide clearer accountability for utility performance; organisational restructuring is being progressed to support the future ring-fenced business unit; and Service Compacts between the eThekwini Municipality as the Service Authority and Trading Services/ EWS as the Service Providers where roles and responsibilities are defined and clarified. . Similarly, the financial and planning instruments provide a more integrated basis for linking investment, budgeting and performance. These changes are being implemented within the Municipality’s existing governance and regulatory environment rather than replacing it. The first implementation year therefore focused on establishing these institutional foundations. Although these activities may not immediately translate into visible service delivery improvements, they represent essential milestones in creating the governance and organisational environment within which financial and operational reforms can be successfully implemented. The Performance Improvement Action Plan (PIAP) builds on these foundations through a phased implementation approach. Once the Minimum Commitments have been established, the PIAP provides a structured framework for monitoring progress across Accountability, Financial and Operational Performance Commitments, which are subsequently translated into function-specific Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) that guide implementation across the utility. The overall structure of the PIAP implementation framework is illustrated in Table 1. 3.2 Translating Strategy Into Measurable Performance Once the Minimum Commitments have been established, the PIAP provides the framework for monitoring implementation across three complementary performance domains: Accountability Performance, Financial Performance and Operational Performance. The Accountability Performance domain measures the effectiveness of governance and organisational capability, including leadership accountability, institutional capacity, customer focus and management performance. The Financial Performance domain evaluates progress towards long-term financial sustainability through indicators related to affordability, revenue management, expenditure control and investment planning. Operational Performance focuses on the delivery of core water and sanitation services, monitoring improvements in areas such as water security, non-revenue water reduction, wastewater services, water quality, asset management and customer service.

Importantly, these performance domains are not monitored as isolated indicators. Each is supported by structured reform activity packages, clearly defined performance indicators, annual targets and assessment methodologies that provide a consistent basis for monitoring implementation over the six-year MTSR programme. This enables progress to be evaluated systematically while allowing implementation priorities to evolve as organisational capability matures and new challenges emerge. 3.3 Embedding Performance Improvement Throughout The Organisation One of the most significant implementation achievements has been the translation of the PIAP into function-specific Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) across the Directorate. Rather than managing implementation through a single corporate plan, individual business functions developed tailored improvement plans aligned with the strategic objectives of the Turnaround Strategy and the requirements of the PIAP. Each Performance Improvement Plan follows a consistent methodology, beginning with an assessment of current performance and baseline conditions before identifying performance gaps, root causes, improvement strategies, implementation actions, measurable targets and monitoring arrangements. This approach enables each function to respond to its specific operational challenges while maintaining alignment with the broader organisational reform programme. By cascading performance improvement throughout the organisation, EWS has moved beyond strategic planning towards operational ownership of reform. Responsibility for implementation no longer rests solely with programme managers or executive leadership but is embedded within the functional areas responsible for service delivery. Furthermore, the Performance Improvement Plans are reviewed and refined annually, allowing implementation priorities and performance targets to evolve in response to operational experience, emerging risks and changing organisational requirements. 3.4 Supporting Sustainable Implementation Performance management alone cannot deliver organisational reform. The PIAP is supported by complementary implementation mechanisms that strengthen the utility’s ability to deliver measurable outcomes over the long term. The Business and Investment Plan translates strategic priorities into an affordable programme of infrastructure investment, while the Financial Business Model evaluates multiple investment and affordability scenarios to support evidence-based decision-making and long-term

TABLE 1: The PIAP implementation framework progresses from foundational Minimum Commitments to performance-based implementation through Accountability, Financial and Operational Commitments, supported by function-specific Performance Improvement Plans. Implementation Layer

Purpose

Examples

Minimum Commitments (M1–M8)

Establish the governance and organisational foundations for reform.

SPoMA, organisational restructuring, Service Compacts, governance, procurement transparency

Accountability Commitments (A)

Strengthen leadership, governance and organisational performance.

Accountability, management capability, customer focus, organisational performance

Financial Commitments (F)

Improve long-term financial sustainability.

Financial resilience, revenue, affordability, investment planning

Operational Commitments (W)

Improve service delivery and operational performance.

Water security, NRW reduction, wastewater, asset management, water quality

Functional Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs)

Translate PIAP commitments into measurable implementation actions.

Baselines, gap analysis, actions, targets, monitoring and annual review

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FIGURE 2: Components of the MTSR Institutional and Governance Reforms financial sustainability. This scenario-based approach enables alternative implementation pathways to be evaluated before significant investment decisions are made, reducing financial risk while supporting the objectives of the Turnaround Strategy. Similarly, innovative delivery mechanisms such as Performance-Based Management Contracts (PBMCs) are being introduced to strengthen implementation in priority areas. Unlike traditional contracts that primarily procure predefined activities, PBMCs align contractor performance with measurable service delivery outcomes and long-term utility objectives. This represents an important shift from activity-based delivery towards outcome-based performance management, reinforcing the broader philosophy of the MTSR Programme. Collectively, these implementation mechanisms demonstrate that performance improvement within EWS extends beyond monitoring and reporting. They provide an integrated management system through which governance, planning, financial sustainability and operational performance are continuously aligned to support the long-term transformation of the utility. Figure 2 illustrates how the Minimum Commitments establish the institutional foundations for reform, enabling the PIAP to cascade performance improvement throughout the organisation and support continuous organisational learning and improvement.

4. PROGRESS TO DATE AND EMERGING IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES The first year of implementation has focused on establishing the institutional, governance and management foundations necessary to support the long-term objectives of the National Treasury Metropolitan

Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme. In practical terms, this has included progressing the institutional arrangements required for SPoMA, organisational restructuring to support the future business unit, completion of the Business and Investment Plan and Financial Business Model, establishment of baseline performance measures, and development of the Performance Improvement Action Plan. These activities establish the structures, information and management mechanisms required to move from strategic planning towards coordinated implementation. Importantly, implementation has taken place alongside broader municipal restructuring and within existing municipal governance and regulatory processes, requiring consultation and iterative alignment across EWS and supporting municipal functions. 4.1 Governance And Institutional Reform A key milestone has been the progression of governance reforms required to establish a more accountable and performance-driven utility. The implementation of Single Point of Management Accountability (SPoMA) has strengthened executive accountability by assigning clear responsibility for business performance while supporting the transition towards a ringfenced utility model. Complementing this, organisational restructuring and Service Compacts have reinforced accountability throughout the Directorate, creating stronger alignment between strategic objectives, operational responsibilities and performance management. The governance reforms extended beyond changes to reporting structures. A fundamental objective of the MTSR Programme is to establish a utility that operates with clear accountability, integrated decisionmaking and greater organisational ownership of performance. Achieving this required the progressive alignment of governance arrangements,

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support functions and business processes to ensure that accountability for planning, budgeting, operations and service delivery rested within a single organisational framework rather than across fragmented structures. One of the more complex aspects of implementation was aligning the organisational restructuring required by the MTSR Programme with the CoGTA Municipal Staff Regulations and the Municipality’s internal approval processes. While this created delays in finalising the proposed structure, the collaborative engagement between National Treasury, municipal leadership and governance stakeholders ultimately strengthened the organisational design. This experience reinforced that governance reform is an iterative process requiring flexibility, sustained leadership and continued stakeholder engagement rather than a once-off organisational intervention. Early implementation has also highlighted the importance of investing in change management alongside structural reform. Establishing new governance arrangements alone is insufficient unless supported by organisational understanding, leadership commitment and staff ownership of the reform programme. Developing this organisational culture remains an ongoing priority as implementation progresses. 4.2 Financial Sustainability And Investment Delivery A major focus during the first year of implementation has been establishing the financial and investment planning capability required to support the long-term objectives of the Turnaround Strategy. The completion of the Business and Investment Plan (BIP) and the Financial Business Model has provided EWS with an integrated framework for evaluating affordability, prioritising capital investment and aligning financial resources with performance improvement objectives. Rather than relying on a single financial projection, the Financial Business Model evaluated multiple funding and investment scenarios to assess the long-term sustainability of the reform programme. This scenario-based approach enabled decision-makers to test alternative implementation pathways, understand the financial implications of different funding assumptions and prioritise interventions that deliver the greatest strategic value while remaining financially achievable. The modelling process also highlighted the benefit of combining specialist financial expertise with the operational knowledge of municipal officials, ensuring that financial assumptions reflected the realities of service delivery and infrastructure management. One of the most significant implementation challenges has been balancing the long-term ambitions of the Turnaround Strategy with the financial constraints facing the municipality. While the BIP identifies substantial capital investment requirements over the programme period, the availability of capital funding has required implementation to be carefully phased. As a result, capital expenditure targets for the initial years of the programme have been moderated, allowing investment priorities to be aligned with available resources while maintaining the long-term trajectory of the reform programme. This phased approach has required continuous review and realignment of the capital programme to ensure that projects remain aligned with the priorities of the Turnaround Strategy, the Financial Business Model and the annual budgeting process. Experience to date has confirmed that planning, budgeting and financial modelling cannot operate as independent processes. Maintaining alignment between these planning instruments has been essential in ensuring that implementation priorities remain realistic, financially sustainable and capable of supporting measurable performance improvements. The implementation programme has also reinforced the importance of securing sustainable funding mechanisms to support long-term reform.

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Several strategic initiatives, including Performance-Based Management Contracts (PBMCs), have progressed through planning and procurement phases, with implementation linked to the phased availability of National Treasury incentive grant funding. This has highlighted the importance of preparing implementation-ready projects well in advance of funding allocations, ensuring that delivery can commence as resources become available. 4.3 Operational Performance And Innovative Delivery As the institutional and financial foundations of the reform programme have matured, attention has increasingly shifted towards improving service delivery through more innovative implementation approaches. Recognising that traditional delivery models alone would not achieve the long-term objectives of the Turnaround Strategy, EWS has begun introducing alternative mechanisms that place greater emphasis on measurable outcomes, operational efficiency and whole-of-life asset performance. A key initiative has been the introduction of Performance-Based Management Contracts (PBMCs) for selected strategic programmes. Unlike conventional contracts, which primarily purchase predefined activities and outputs, PBMCs are structured to achieve measurable service outcomes. This shifts the focus from completing works to delivering sustained improvements in utility performance, creating stronger alignment between investment and operational results. This approach encourages innovation, improves accountability and aligns contractor performance with the broader objectives of the utility, including improved service levels, asset performance and operational efficiency. One of the first applications of this approach is the proposed PINK Performance-Based Non-Revenue Water (NRW) Contract, targeting the Phoenix, Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (PINK) areas. The initiative directly addresses one of the Municipality’s highest strategic priorities by linking contractor remuneration to verified reductions in non-revenue water rather than to the completion of prescribed activities. This outcomebased approach is intended to strengthen accountability, encourage innovation and ensure that investment delivers measurable operational and financial improvements. Beyond NRW reduction, PBMCs have also been developed to augment municipal capacity across key financial, commercial, operational and customer management functions. Rather than replacing municipal leadership, these contracts are intended to provide specialist expertise and mentoring while aligning contractor performance with the same weighted Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP) scorecard used to monitor municipal performance. This creates a shared performance framework in which contractor success is directly linked to improvements achieved by the utility. However, practical experience has demonstrated that outcome-based contracting requires a fundamentally different approach to project preparation. Establishing credible baseline information, defining measurable performance indicators, developing robust business cases and allocating performance risk appropriately have proven to be as important as the procurement process itself. This preparatory work has required significant collaboration across technical, financial and governance functions to ensure that projects are implementation-ready before procurement commences. Complementing the PBMC approach, EWS is also progressing PublicPrivate Partnerships (PPPs) for strategic infrastructure projects where alternative financing and private sector expertise can accelerate implementation. Priority initiatives include the Umdloti and Umkomaas

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Wastewater Treatment Works, with additional opportunities being investigated for the KwaMashu and Northern Wastewater Treatment Works, water reuse schemes and the Remix desalination initiative. These projects seek to improve water security and infrastructure resilience while reducing pressure on constrained municipal capital budgets. Implementation of several of these initiatives remains linked to the phased availability of National Treasury incentive funding. This has reinforced the importance of maintaining a pipeline of implementation-ready projects so that delivery can commence as funding becomes available. Experience to date has shown that successful implementation depends not only on innovative procurement models but on organisational readiness, credible performance information and sustained institutional commitment. 4.4 Emerging Implementation Challenges While the implementation programme has established a strong foundation for long-term reform, it has also highlighted the complexity of transforming a metropolitan water and sanitation utility while maintaining essential service delivery. The experience to date has confirmed that institutional reform, financial sustainability and operational improvement cannot progress independently; each relies on the successful implementation of the others. This has required continuous coordination across technical, financial and corporate functions, reinforcing the importance of integrated programme management throughout the reform journey. A recurring challenge has been balancing the demands of long-term transformation with the immediate operational pressures facing the utility. EWS has continued to address the legacy of ageing infrastructure, deferred maintenance and the impacts of the 2022 flood disaster while simultaneously implementing significant organisational reforms. This has required careful prioritisation of resources and investment, ensuring that immediate service delivery needs are addressed without compromising the strategic objectives of the Turnaround Strategy. Another important insight has been the role of reliable information in supporting implementation. Establishing credible baseline data required considerable effort across both operational and financial functions, but has proven essential for setting realistic performance targets, monitoring progress and informing investment decisions. The process has demonstrated that meaningful performance improvement is dependent not only on ambitious targets, but on confidence in the quality of the information used to measure them. Finally, the implementation experience has reinforced that organisational transformation is an ongoing process rather than a single programme of work. Governance arrangements, financial planning, organisational structures and performance management systems will continue to evolve as implementation progresses and new challenges emerge. Maintaining momentum, organisational ownership and alignment between strategy, investment and operational delivery will remain critical to achieving the long-term objectives of the MTSR Programme.

5. CONCLUSION The implementation of the eThekwini Water and Sanitation Turnaround Strategy represents the transition from strategic planning to organisational delivery under the National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme. While the development of the Turnaround Strategy established the strategic direction for reform, the first phase of implementation has demonstrated that achieving sustainable utility transformation requires the coordinated implementation of governance reform, financial planning, organisational change and performance management within a single integrated framework.

Progress achieved to date has focused on establishing the institutional foundations necessary to support long-term reform. Key implementation milestones have included the development of integrated planning and financial management tools, the introduction of strengthened governance and accountability arrangements, and the rollout of performance improvement processes across the organisation. At the same time, implementation has highlighted the practical realities of organisational transformation, including the need to balance strategic ambitions with financial constraints, institutional capacity and the ongoing demands of service delivery. The implementation experience has confirmed that meaningful utility reform is an iterative process rather than a once-off intervention. Success depends not only on well-developed strategies, but on sustained organisational commitment, adaptive programme management and the continuous alignment of governance, investment planning and operational performance. These principles remain central to the National Treasury MTSR Programme and have guided the implementation approach adopted by eThekwini Water and Sanitation. Although the reform journey is ongoing, the progress achieved during the first phase demonstrates that an integrated implementation approach provides a practical pathway for translating strategic intent into measurable organisational change. The experiences presented in this paper contribute to the growing body of knowledge on metropolitan utility reform and provide a foundation for the continued implementation of the Turnaround Strategy in the years ahead.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS The implementation of the National Treasury Metropolitan Trading Services Reform (MTSR) Programme within eThekwini Water and Sanitation has provided valuable insight into the practical realities of utility reform. Although every municipality operates within a unique institutional and financial environment, several recommendations have emerged from the first phase of implementation that may assist other municipalities embarking on similar reform programmes. Establish institutional and governance foundations as the first priority Sustainable utility reform should begin with strengthening governance arrangements, organisational accountability and management structures before pursuing large-scale operational improvements. Establishing these institutional foundations creates an enabling environment for effective decision-making, coordinated implementation and long-term organisational performance. Integrate strategic planning, budgeting and financial modelling Successful implementation depends on maintaining alignment between strategic objectives, long-term financial planning, capital investment programmes and annual budgets. These planning processes should not operate independently. Integrating them enables municipalities to prioritise investments, phase implementation according to available resources and maintain momentum despite changing financial conditions. Build performance improvement on credible information Reliable operational and financial data should form the basis of all performance improvement initiatives. Developing credible baseline information before setting performance targets improves the quality of decision-making, supports meaningful performance monitoring and provides greater confidence that improvement objectives are realistic and achievable.

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Prioritise implementation readiness before procurement Innovative delivery mechanisms, including performance-based contracting, require significant preparation before procurement can commence. Municipalities should invest in project preparation by defining measurable outcomes, establishing appropriate performance indicators, strengthening monitoring systems and ensuring organisational readiness. Well-prepared projects are more likely to achieve intended outcomes and can be implemented more efficiently when funding becomes available. Adopt a phased and adaptive approach to implementation Utility reform should be viewed as a long-term organisational transformation process rather than a once-off intervention. Implementation programmes should remain sufficiently flexible to respond to funding constraints, regulatory requirements and evolving operational priorities while maintaining alignment with long-term strategic objectives. Regular review of implementation plans and performance targets enables municipalities to adapt without losing sight of their overall reform objectives. The experience of eThekwini Water and Sanitation demonstrates that meaningful reform is achieved through the integration of governance, financial planning, organisational capability and performance management within a single implementation framework. While the reform journey remains ongoing, the recommendations presented provide a practical implementation approach that may assist other municipalities pursuing sustainable improvements in water and sanitation service delivery under the National Treasury MTSR Programme. The experience to date therefore reinforces that the foundational reforms are not ends in themselves, but enabling mechanisms through which measurable improvements in financial and operational performance can progressively be achieved.

7. LIST OF ACRONYMS A3-PIAP Annexure A3 Performance Improvement Action Plan BIP Business and Investment Plan CAPEX Capital Expenditure CoGTA Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs EWS eThekwini Water and Sanitation FBM Financial Business Model KP Key Performance Indicator MTSR Metropolitan Trading Services Reform NRW Non-Revenue Water PBMC Performance-Based Management Contract PIAP Performance Improvement Action Plan PIP Performance Improvement Plan PPP Public-Private Partnership SPoMA Single Point of Management Accountability TAS Turnaround Strategy 8. REFERENCES Department of Water and Sanitation. Blue Drop and Green Drop Reports. 2022. eThekwini Municipality. Final eThekwini Water and Sanitation Turnaround Strategy (TAS). Approved by Council, April 2023. eThekwini Municipality. Institutional Reform Roadmap (A1) Submission. Submitted to National Treasury, 30 September 2024. eThekwini Municipality. Business and Investment Plan (A2) Submission. Submitted to National Treasury, 30 September 2024. eThekwini Municipality. Performance Improvement Action Plan (A3-PIAP) Submission. Submitted to National Treasury, 30 September 2024. eThekwini Municipality. EXCO Report WS2025_023 – Compliance with

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National Treasury Trading Services Reform Requirements. March 2024. National Treasury. Guidance Note 1: Metro Preparations for the Introduction of Trading Services Infrastructure Financing Reforms. 1 April 2024. National Treasury. Guidance Note 2: Metro Preparations for Trading Services Infrastructure Financing Reforms. 7 August 2024. National Treasury. Guidance Note 3: Institutional Arrangements for Reforming Metro Trading Services. 9 September 2024. National Treasury. Guidance Note 4: Completing the Trading Services Reform Strategy (TSRS) A3 Performance Improvement Action Plan (PIAP). 2024. National Treasury. Addendum to Guidance Note 4: Detailed Instructions for Completing the A3 Performance Improvement Action Plan (PIAP) Template. 2025. Soni, B., Canny, R. Turnaround Strategy of eThekwini Water & Sanitation Unit and Implementation Action Plan: From Crisis to Resilience. Paper 10 - IMESA Conference, 2025.

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PAPER 5

BLUEPRINTS REIMAGINED: AN INTEGRATED WATER SECURITY STRATEGY FOR A WATER-STRESSED MUNICIPALITY – THE PRINCE ALBERT TOWN CASE STUDY J Hough, 2T Kleynhans Pr Tech Eng, Senior Technologist, SMEC South Africa 2 Pr Eng, Technical Specialist, SMEC South Africa 1 1

ABSTRACT Small to medium-sized municipalities in arid and semi-arid regions are becoming increasingly vulnerable to water shortages due to growing demands, climate variability, limited or restricted surface water allocations, ageing infrastructure and growing reliance on groundwater that is already under stress. The town of Prince Albert, located at the northern foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, reflects many of these challenges, having experienced repeated significant summer water shortages. This paper presents a reimagined approach to the town’s water security, developed through a comprehensive feasibility study, that brings together surface water management, short-term storage and managed aquifer recharge into one flexible and coordinated system. The proposed strategy combines several smaller, permanent, low-impact interventions, comprising an intake weir with reliable flow measurement and sediment control, off channel raw water storage and a series of check dams and a sand dam designed to support natural and assisted groundwater recharge. Hydrological modelling based on below-average rainfall conditions and informed by climate change projections shows that a phased off-channel storage volume of 50,000 m³, expandable to 100,000 m³, can provide more than 72-months of water supply security when used together with moderate water demand management measures and existing groundwater sources. The inclusion of flood control and recharge structures promotes groundwater recharge and strengthens groundwater reserves, limits flood damage, while still meeting environmental flow requirements and protecting downstream water users. The study demonstrates that carefully rethinking conventional water infrastructure, with an emphasis on flexibility, modular design and phased implementation, can significantly improve resilience without large once-off capital expenditure. Institutional coordination, environmental approvals and water demand and leakage management are integral to the proposed system, supporting long-term sustainability and regulatory compliance. This case study provides a practical and transferable framework for other water-stressed municipalities, showing how integrated multidisciplinary planning, sound engineering and data driven decision-making can turn fragmented water sources into resilient and climate-responsive municipal water supply systems. INTRODUCTION Water security has become one of the most critical infrastructure challenges facing municipalities across South Africa. In South Africa, an analysis conducted by the Water Resources Group projects a water demand of 17.7 billion m³/a against supply of approximately 15 billion m³/a, resulting in a

national shortfall of approximately 17% by 2030, if no major interventions are undertaken (Water Resources Group, 2012). Sixteen years later, in 2026, the situation has not changed as demonstrated in Figure 1. The increasing frequency of prolonged droughts, declining reliability of surface water systems, ageing infrastructure, growing populations and climate uncertainty have shifted water resource planning from a supplydriven discipline to a resilience-driven discipline. Traditional municipal water supply systems have historically been developed around a dominant source, commonly a dam, river abstraction scheme or groundwater wellfield. While this approach was effective under relatively stable climatic

FIGURE 1: Global and South Africa Water Outlook (United Nations, 2026); (Government of South Africa, 2024); (Water Resources Group, 2012)

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conditions, it has proven increasingly vulnerable in semi-arid and arid regions where hydrological variability is high. Prince Albert Municipality is located within the Great Karoo region of the Western Cape and is one of the most water constrained regions in South Africa. The municipality relies on a combination of surface water abstraction from the Dorps River and groundwater abstraction from municipal boreholes. Although this conjunctive-use strategy has historically provided sufficient water, recurring droughts and increasing seasonal demand have reduced the reliability of the existing water supply system. During peak summer periods, the available supply reaches operational limits, increasing the risk of water shortages. The feasibility study presented an opportunity to move beyond conventional augmentation planning and investigate a more comprehensive water security strategy. Rather than identifying a single infrastructure intervention, the study sought to develop an integrated raw water management system that improves resilience through source diversification, storage optimisation, groundwater recharge enhancement and operational flexibility. The resulting feasibility study therefore adopted a systems-based approach where multiple infrastructure components operate collectively to improve overall water security of the town. This paper presents the engineering methodology, analysis, outcomes and lessons learnt from the feasibility study and proposes a framework for climate-resilient municipal water source management applicable to municipalities located in arid and semi-arid environments.

EXISTING WATER SOURCES AND FUTURE DEMAND Current Water Supply Prince Albert Town currently utilises a conjunctive water supply system comprising both surface water and groundwater sources. Surface water is abstracted from the Dorps River through the Kweekvallei Water Users Association (WUA) infrastructure, while groundwater is supplied from a municipal borehole field located south of the town. This approach has

historically provided a degree of resilience against seasonal fluctuations in water availability and has enabled the municipality to maintain water supply during periods of reduced river flow. The municipality holds a total authorised abstraction allocation of 500,000 m³/a, consisting of 121,000 m³/a from the Dorps River and 379,000 m³/a from groundwater sources. In addition, the municipality receives a portion of the water conveyed through the WUA irrigation canal system, where a long-standing agreement provides access to a share of the available surface water resource. Analysis of operational records indicates that current municipal water demand varies significantly throughout the year, ranging from a minimum measured daily demand of 0.42 ML/day during winter periods to peak demands exceeding 4.0 ML/day during the summer season. The calculated average annual demand based on the readings is rounded to 1.5 ML/day. Seasonal variations are largely driven by increased domestic consumption, tourism activity and irrigation-related water use during the summer months. The average monthly consumption of Prince Albert Town has been presented in Figure 2. Although the existing conjunctive-use system has generally been successful in maintaining supply, recent drought periods have demonstrated the vulnerability of the current arrangement. Extended periods of reduced river flows, increasing pressure on groundwater resources and limited operational storage have constrained the municipality’s ability to respond to prolonged dry periods. Consequently, the town is becoming increasingly reliant on the effective management of water demand, as well as its surface water and groundwater resources, to maintain an acceptable level of water supply security. Future Water Demand Future water requirements were assessed using the Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guide “Old Red Book” planning methodology and a projected population growth rate of 3.32% per annum over a 20-year

FIGURE 2: Prince Albert Town average monthly consumption (Jan 2023 to Jan 2025)

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FIGURE 3: Yearly demand split between groundwater and surface water augmentation

planning horizon. The assessment indicates that the population of Prince Albert Town could increase from approximately 17,800 residents in 2024 to more than 32,000 residents by 2042. This growth will place significant pressure on the municipality’s existing water resources and supporting infrastructure. Based on the planning projections, average daily water demand is expected to increase from rounded 1.5 ML/day to 5 ML/day by 2042, while peak summer demands may increase from rounded 4.1 ML/day to 7.5 ML/ day. These projected demands exceed the capacity that can be reliably supplied from the existing licensed resources during periods of drought and reduced river flow. The projected annual average demand has been presented in Figure 3, indicating the required increase in the raw water augmentation from surface water sources. An important observation from the feasibility study was that actual water consumption is currently lower than theoretical planning values. This is largely attributed to the existing demand management being implemented and the water-conscious behaviour of residents as a result of long-term exposure to water scarcity and drought conditions. While this behaviour has assisted the municipality in managing current demand, future planning cannot assume that these reduced consumption patterns will remain unchanged in the long term. Infrastructure planning therefore adopted a conservative approach by considering both observed consumption trends and projected development demands. The demand assessment clearly illustrates that future water security cannot be achieved through continued reliance on existing system alone. Additional storage, improved operational control, enhanced groundwater recharge and optimisation of available surface-water resources will be required to ensure a reliable raw water supply capable of supporting future municipal growth and increasing climate variability.

DESIGN REFERENCE DATA AND VALIDATION Importance of Data Confidence A common challenge in Prince Albert Town’s water resource planning is the absence of long-term, high-quality hydrological datasets. The Dorps River

catchment has no permanent flow gauging stations currently, to provide sufficiently detailed information to accurately quantify low flows, flood frequencies and seasonal variability. Consequently, the study adopted a multiple-lines-of-evidence approach whereby independent datasets were analysed and cross-validated to improve confidence in the design assumptions. The design process integrated: • South African Weather Service rainfall records; • Cape Nature weather station data; • CHIRPS (Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data) precipitation datasets; • Catchment hydrological modelling; • Existing water use information; • Groundwater investigations; • Historical operating practices of the Water Users Association. The resulting mean annual precipitation (MAP) of 322 mm/a correlates well with previous regional studies and rainfall station analyses as indicated in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Summary of rainfall datasets Rainfall Dataset

Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP)

Old Toll Station

322 mm/a

Oukloof Yield Study

329 mm/a

Catchment Average Estimate

335 mm/a

Cape Nature; 2Department of Water and Sanitation

Probabilistic analysis of precipitation data from 1995 to 2024 for the lower Dorps River catchment near Prince Albert Town indicates a greater likelihood of below-average annual rainfall than of annual rainfall equalling or exceeding the long-term mean. Despite this skew towards below-average conditions, the probability of annual precipitation declining to less than 50% of the mean annual rainfall is estimated at less than 0.002 (1:500). The probability of experiencing two successive years with rainfall below 50% of

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• More intense storm events; • Lower average rainfall; • Longer drought periods. This combination creates a paradox often observed in arid regions: larger floods occur less frequently. From a water resources perspective, this means municipalities must maximise capture, storage and recharge during short-duration high-flow events while maintaining security through extended dry periods. The proposed intervention strategy directly addresses this challenge by combining floodwater harvesting, temporary storage and aquifer recharge enhancement. Stakeholder Engagement and Regulatory Alignment The successful implementation of a project FIGURE 4: Histogram showing annual precipitation distribution for catchment near Prince Albert Town derived from CHIRPS estimates (Myburgh, 2025) of this nature requires extensive coordination between technical, regulatory, environmental the mean is substantially lower, estimated at less than 0.000004 (1:250,000), and institutional stakeholders. A key consideration during the feasibility study was to ensure that the proposed interventions adequately addressed as shown in Figure 4. The close agreement between independently derived data sets increases statutory requirements, operational constraints, environmental sensitivities confidence that the adopted hydrological inputs are representative of and the needs of affected water users. Early stakeholder engagement was therefore essential to identify potential fatal flaws, confirm project actual catchment conditions. Based on this data, the interventions were evaluated against the scenario constraints and guide the development of technically feasible and that the catchment will receive rainfall less than 50% Mean Annual Runoff implementable solutions. (MAR) in three consecutive years. The principal stakeholders consulted during the project included: • Prince Albert Municipality Demand Validation An important observation during the study was the significant • Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) difference between theoretical demand projections and actual demand • Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP) measurements. Design demand projections based on The Neighbourhood Planning • Breede-Olifants Catchment Management Agency (BOCMA) and Design Guide, “Old CSIR Redbook”, produced estimated future water • Cape Nature demands considerably higher than current consumption trends. Further • Kweekvallei Water User Association (Farmers utilising the water from the Dorps River through a canal system) investigation revealed that Prince Albert Town residents have become exceptionally water conscious due to historical water resource constraints • Heritage Western Cape and recurrent drought conditions. The difference is presented in Table 2. Consultation workshops were held with the relevant stakeholders during the early stages of the project life cycle. These engagements provided an TABLE 2: Standard design vs actual water use opportunity to test key assumptions, identify regulatory and environmental requirements, understand existing water-use arrangements and assess Water Use (2024) Demand potential constraints associated with the proposed infrastructure. The Standard Design Norms (Department of 2.76ML/d Human Settlements, 2019) outcomes of the consultation process informed the overall design approach, assisted in identifying critical approvals and authorisations, and contributed Actual 1.5ML/d to the assessment of the feasibility of the proposed interventions. This collaborative approach ensured that stakeholder requirements were Whilst actual consumption provides a useful indicator of present behaviour, incorporated into the planning process from the outset, thereby reducing infrastructure planning cannot rely solely on current consumption patterns. Future developments, economic growth, tourism expansion and changing implementation risk and improving the likelihood of successful project consumer behaviour may result in demand approaching conventional delivery. design values. Consequently, the study adopted a conservative planning approach that incorporated both actual usage and theoretical future OPTIONS ANALYSIS Why a Single Intervention is Insufficient demand projections. One of the most important findings of the study was that no individual intervention could independently provide acceptable long-term water Climate Resilience Validation The adopted climate assumptions were intentionally conservative. Evidence security. Surface water systems alone remain vulnerable to drought. Groundwater indicates that the region is likely to experience: • Increased temperatures of between 1.7°C to 2.2°C; systems alone remain vulnerable to declining recharge rates. Storage

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• Facilitating future infrastructure integration; • Creating conditions for improved aquifer recharge upstream though infiltration via the riverbed. Perhaps the most significant benefit of the weir is not the abstraction itself, but the creation of an operational control point from which the entire water resource system can be managed and monitored. An isometric view of the proposed weir section and overflow diversion channel is provided in Figure 5.

FIGURE 5: Isometric view of weir and diversion structure facilities alone cannot generate water during prolonged dry periods. Consequently, each intervention was evaluated not only on its individual performance but also on how it contributes to the overall resilience of the integrated system. An additional factor considered was the implementation plan, to allow for the implementation of functional components, that align with municipal budget allocation and improve the resilience and sustainability of the system. Permanent Diversion Weir The permanent weir forms the operational heart of the proposed system. Historically, abstraction from the Dorps River relied on temporary diversion structures that required regular maintenance and reconstruction after flood events. In addition to operational risks, the temporary infrastructure prevented accurate quantification of water availability and abstraction volumes. The proposed permanent weir addresses these shortcomings by: • Stabilising abstraction conditions; • Providing reliable flow measurement within the Dorps River; • Improving water allocation management by accurately quantifying diverted volumes;

Off-Channel Storage Dam Traditional reservoirs typically function as primary water storage facilities. The proposed off-channel dam serves a fundamentally different purpose. Instead of serving as a facility for long-term storage of annual water requirements, the reservoir operates as a strategic water reserve. Water is captured during high-flow periods and retained for subsequent use within the municipal supply network. The availability of raw water from the storage dam decreases dependence on groundwater resources, thereby facilitating aquifer recovery and natural recharge while supporting the sustainable management of water supplies. Storage modelling demonstrated that the evaporation in Prince Albert Town (which exceeds 1.5m/a), plays a critical role in the proposed systems performance. Various configurations were assessed, and within site parameters, the operational depth range of the dam was between 10m and 15m, and the minimise the evaporation losses, the 15m was proposed to minimise the surface area. The results in Table 3 showed that a 50 000 m³ dam with a 15 m operating depth provides significantly greater resilience than a shallower reservoir of similar volume. When combined with groundwater augmentation and demand reduction (on Redbook projected demand) of 25%, the system could provide security of supply for the town exceeding 72 months under severe drought conditions. Managed Aquifer Recharge Groundwater is frequently treated as a standalone source. The study instead viewed groundwater as a strategic storage reservoir and critical component of the proposed system.

TABLE 3: Dam model sizing – summary (Green highlighted cells on WUA allocation indicate scenarios where water demand measures have been implemented) Summary Component Rainfall (% below average)

45.0%

47.5%

50.0%

55.0%

55.0% 100

Dam Size (x 1000 m³)

Dam average Depth

Riparian Flow Allocation (L/s)

WUA Allocation (L/s)

2042 - No Augmentation

>72

2042 - With Augmentation

>72

Summary Component Rainfall (% below average) Dam Size (x 1000 m³)

B-4

B-5

B-6

B-7

B-8

B-9

B - 10

B - 11

B - 12

47.5%

50.0%

55.0%

Dam average Depth

Riparian Flow Allocation (L/s)

WUA Allocation (L/s)

2042 - No Augmentation

>72

2042 - With Augmentation

>72

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Cape Supergroup Table mountain

Ceres

Karoo Supergroup

Bokkeveld

Witteberg

Ecca

Prince Albert Town Residential Area

Beaufort Dynamic Water Level

Static Water Level

GM UC

GMU B

GMU A

FIGURE 6: Geological section along Dorps River (Myburgh, 2025) Managed aquifer recharge increases the volume of water stored underground during periods of surplus availability. Compared with surface storage, underground storage offers several advantages: • Negligible evaporation losses; • Reduced contamination risks; • Improved drought resilience; • Long-term storage capability. The existing artificial recharge initiatives undertaken by the municipality provided confidence that additional recharge interventions could be successfully implemented in future. The feasibility study therefore sought to maximise opportunities for recharge throughout the river corridor using primary run-off water during flood events by siting injection boreholes along suitable geological substrates and passive infiltration measures to improve shallow aquifer recharge and utilise the sand bed above the phreatic surface as additional storage. Sand Dams and Check Dams Although relatively small compared to conventional dams, sand dams and recharge check dams are passive infiltration measures that improve recharge to shallow aquifers and form a crucial component of the overall system. These structures achieve several objectives simultaneously: • Reduce flood water flow velocity (reduces risk of damage during flood events); • Increased infiltration time; • Improve groundwater recharge; • Create distributed storage in the substrate; • Improve water availability near boreholes.

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Rather than transporting floodwater rapidly through the catchment, the structures intentionally slow and spread flows, converting short-duration flood events into extended recharge opportunities. This transforms the flood into a recharge opportunity in this water scarce environment. This represents a shift from conventional flood management philosophy, where the objective is typically to remove water from the system as quickly as possible. During the study it was proposed to implement the first five check dams and a single sand dam as indicated by Figure 7. The sand dam will utilise a layer of highly porous sediment (12m-18m thick) to create additional storage within the system. Further check dams higher up in the catchment are recommended for future phases.

FIGURE 7: Preliminary locations for check and sand dams with recorded alluvium depth measurements indicated by the heat map (Myburgh, 2025).

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Water Demand and Leakage Management A fundamental component upon which the proposed system is anchored is the continuation and refinement of the municipal water conservation and demand management programme. This includes the continuation of the technical aspects such as the installation of improved infrastructure to define the system input volume (included in this project), maintenance of the billing meters and database, leak detection and repair programme, valve inspections and maintenance, and revenue collection. Further development of community education and awareness programmes is required to minimise the inefficient use of water. This will also help prepare and empower the community to partner with the municipality in protecting the resource. Communication with the community should also be strengthened to empower residents, disseminate critical information, and improve preparedness, enabling agile adjustments to water demand as and when required.

•

• Water Reclamation Prince Albert Town Town’s wastewater will increase in line with its growth in water demand. This will require an increase in the treatment capacity of the wastewater treatment facility. The study further recommended that as part of the future plant upgrade, consideration should be given to the reclamation and re-use of the treated effluent to reduce the demand on raw water sources.

FRAMEWORK FOR CLIMATE-RESILIENT MUNICIPAL WATER SOURCE MANAGEMENT The feasibility study demonstrated that sustainable water security cannot be achieved through infrastructure alone. Instead, municipalities require a structured holistic framework that integrates engineering, hydrology, operations, community and governance. The proposed framework consists of six interrelated pillars as demonstrated in Figure 8. Within the proposed system for Prince Albert Town, the following pillars were achieved: • Pillar 1 – Diversified Water Sources Surface water, groundwater, reuse opportunities and artificial recharge should operate as a collective portfolio of resources. • Pillar 2 – Capture High Flows Future rainfall patterns are expected to produce fewer but more intense

runoff events. The municipal infrastructure was therefore designed to capitalise on these events through temporary storage, diversion and recharge systems. Pillar 3 – Store Water Where Evaporation is Lowest In this arid region, evaporation exceeds annual rainfall. Underground storage through aquifer recharge should therefore be prioritised wherever suitable hydrogeological conditions exist. Pillar 4 – Build Redundancy The failure of any single component will not result in system failure. Storage dams, boreholes, recharge infrastructure and abstraction systems complement one another. Pillar 5 – Measure Everything Reliable decision-making requires accurate information. The provision of accurate system input data and offtake control will result in the improved monitoring and effective management of the resource. Pillar 6 – Manage Demand as a Resource The study demonstrated that relatively small reductions in municipal demand substantially improve supply security. Demand management and the minimisation of losses should therefore be considered a water source in its own right.

CONCLUSION The feasibility study illustrates the transition from conventional water augmentation planning towards integrated water resilience planning. The key lesson emerging from the study is that sustainable water security is not solely dependent on the construction of larger infrastructure but can also be achieved through the development of smarter, integrated systems. The combination of a permanent diversion structure, strategic off-channel storage, managed aquifer recharge, sand dams, recharge check dams and demand management measures creates a resilient water supply portfolio capable of adapting to uncertain future climatic conditions. Perhaps most importantly, the study demonstrates that groundwater and surface water should not be managed as separate resources. By actively linking river flows, recharge systems and groundwater abstraction infrastructure, municipalities can significantly increase the efficiency and resilience of existing water resources. The proposed approach provides a practical model for municipalities across the Karoo and other arid regions facing similar challenges related to climate variability, increasing water demand and limited water resources. RECOMMENDATION Municipal water security planning in arid regions should transition from a “single-source augmentation” approach to a holistic water security framework incorporating storage, recharge, diversification, adaptive infrastructure, demand management and institutional control. The feasibility study provides a replicable model for climate-resilient municipal water source management across water-scarce regions of South Africa.

FIGURE 8: Six Pillars of the Framework for Climate-Resilient Municipal Water Source Management

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors wish to acknowledge Mr Ashley America, Senior Manager: Technical Services at Prince Albert Municipality, for affording the opportunity to undertake this feasibility study and for providing the professional space to develop an integrated framework for climateresilient municipal water source management. The authors further acknowledge Mr Jan Myburgh, Principal Hydrogeologist, for making himself available as part of the professional team and for his valuable technical contribution to the Managed Aquifer Recharge component of the study.

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REFERENCES Boccaletti, G., Stuchtey, M., & van Olst, M. (2010, June). Confronting South Africa’s water challenge. McKinsey Quarterly, p. 6. Department of Human Settlements. (2019). The Neighbourhood Planning and Design Guide. Pretoria: South African Government. Government of South Africa. (2024). Official Guide to South Africa 21st Edition. Pretoria: Government Communications. United Nations. (2026, July 01). Climate Change. Retrieved from Climate Action: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/ water United Nations. (2026, July 01). Water Facts. Retrieved from UN Water: https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity Water Resources Group. (2012). Background, Impact and the Way Forward. Davos-Klosters: World Economic Forum.

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PAPER 6

DIGITAL ENABLEMENT FOR MUNICIPAL RESILIENCE: MOVING BEYOND FRAGMENTED INITIATIVES TO PRACTICAL, PHASED PROGRESS ¹Samista Jugwanth and ²Yasheen Harrielall Zutari, Durban, South Africa

ABSTRACT South African municipalities operate under conditions of compounding stress. Ageing infrastructure, constrained budgets, accelerating climate risk, skills attrition, and intensifying governance obligations collectively erode the capacity to deliver reliable services. Digital systems are widely promoted as a means of restoring that capacity, yet investment in technology alone has not resolved the underlying problem. Across the public sector, digital initiatives remain fragmented, poorly sequenced, and disconnected from service delivery mandates, producing complexity without measurable improvement. A structured 3-Stage Digital Enablement Programme addresses this problem. Rather than starting with technology, the Programme starts with organisational readiness, service delivery priorities, and disciplined sequencing. The Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework sits at the diagnostic core of the Programme, assessing municipal digital capability across eight domains: Strategy and Leadership, Governance and Compliance, Technology and Infrastructure, Data and Analytics, People and Skills, Internal Operations, Service Delivery and Customer Experience, and Innovation and Partnerships. Together, the three stages move a municipality from baseline understanding through structured visioning to a phased, defensible roadmap, sequenced by working backward from a defined target state. The Programme and Framework are grounded in practical experience across public sector organisations in southern Africa and are currently being piloted to establish sector-level digital maturity benchmarks. This paper argues that municipal resilience depends less on digital sophistication than on digital readiness, clear service priorities, and disciplined sequencing. It demonstrates that digital immaturity amplifies service delivery risk by reducing situational awareness, slowing decisionmaking, and weakening the ability to account for decisions when things go wrong. The paper concludes that municipalities adopting this approach gain improved system visibility, stronger alignment between digital investment and service outcomes, and more defensible decision-making. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The digital imperative in the public sector South Africa’s municipal sector operates at the intersection of inherited infrastructure backlogs, constrained fiscal capacity, and accelerating service demand. In the 2023-24 financial year, a small fraction of municipalities achieved clean audits, a marginal improvement on the previous year but a clear indication that the majority do not yet meet basic standards of financial and performance accountability. Over the same period, the Department of Water and Sanitation reported national non-revenue water at approximately 47%, well above

the international benchmark of around 30 percent (Khaled, 2025) and representing both a financial and a service delivery crisis of considerable magnitude (DWS, 2023). Infrastructure maintenance backlogs, where they have been quantified, run into hundreds of billions of rands, and the skills required to manage complex water, sanitation, roads, and electrical systems are leaving the public sector faster than they are being replaced. Against this backdrop, the governance environment has grown substantially more demanding. Municipalities are required to report against the Municipal Finance Management Act, the Water Services Act, the Municipal Systems Act, and an expanding set of national and provincial performance frameworks. Municipal officials are simultaneously managing deteriorating systems, shrinking teams, and growing reporting obligations. In most cases they are doing this without the data infrastructure to assist. 1.2 The technology temptation and its limits The global response to infrastructure stress has increasingly centred on digital systems. Smart water networks in Singapore (Mutchek & Williams, 2014), sensor-based asset management in Amsterdam (Worp, 2026), and predictive maintenance platforms in Melbourne (Mabry et al., 2025) have demonstrated that digital capability can substantially improve service reliability and operational efficiency. These examples are frequently cited in South African policy and planning contexts as models to emulate. The difficulty is that the conditions enabling these outcomes, namely stable institutional capacity, mature data environments, clear digital governance, and sustained investment, are precisely the conditions that most South African municipalities do not yet have. When digital investment is pursued in their absence, the result is not transformation but accumulation: systems that do not speak to one another, dashboards that are not maintained, platforms procured without the skills to operate them, and reporting tools that duplicate rather than replace manual processes. Digital investment, in these conditions, increases organisational complexity without improving service delivery. 1.3 Purpose and contribution of this paper This paper argues that the path from digital fragmentation to digital enablement requires three things: an honest assessment of where an organisation currently stands, a structured process for defining where it needs to go, and a disciplined roadmap for getting there incrementally. These three elements constitute the 3-Stage Digital Enablement Programme presented in this paper. At the diagnostic core of the Programme sits the Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework, a structured instrument developed to evaluate municipal digital capability across eight interconnected domains and to translate that evaluation into actionable, sequenced investment decisions. The Programme is not a theoretical construct. It was developed through engagement with the academic literature and refined through direct

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experience working with public sector clients across southern Africa. It is currently being piloted with the objective of establishing current-state benchmarks and building an empirical foundation for ongoing refinement.

2. DIGITAL FAILURE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR 2.1 Four compounding failure modes The gap between digital investment and digital value in the South African municipal context is not primarily a consequence of insufficient funding or inadequate technology. It is a consequence of structural patterns in how digital initiatives are conceived, approved, and implemented. Four compounding failure modes recur across public sector organisations. 2.1.1 Initiative fragmentation Digital projects are frequently approved and implemented at departmental level without reference to one another or to an overarching digital strategy. The result is a landscape of disconnected systems, each solving a local problem while contributing to a growing integration debt. Asset management platforms do not connect to financial systems. Customer facing portals do not draw on operational data. Geographic information system layers maintained by different directorates use incompatible coordinate systems. The organisation accumulates tools without accumulating capability.

FIGURE 1: The digital fragmentation failure cycle 2.1.2 Absent baseline Investment decisions are made without a clear understanding of current digital maturity. Without a structured baseline, organisations cannot distinguish between initiatives that address genuine capability gaps and those that add sophistication to domains that are already functioning adequately. Procurement is driven by vendor availability, peer benchmarking,

or political visibility rather than by a systematic assessment of where digital investment will produce the greatest service delivery return. 2.1.3 Sequencing failure Advanced digital capability depends on foundational capability. Predictive analytics requires clean, consistent data. Clean data requires stable data governance. Stable data governance requires clear ownership and accountability structures. When advanced tools are procured before foundations are in place, they either fail to deliver or create new problems. Sequencing failure is among the most common and most costly patterns in public sector digital investment. 2.1.4 Change fatigue Each failed or underperforming digital initiative consumes political capital, staff goodwill, and financial resource. Repeated cycles of procurement, implementation, underperformance, and abandonment produce an institutional culture of scepticism toward digital investment, making it progressively more difficult to secure the internal commitment that successful transformation requires. 2.2 The consequence for municipal resilience These four failure modes have a direct consequence for organisational resilience. Municipalities with low digital maturity have: • Reduced situational awareness. They do not know, in real time, what is happening across their infrastructure networks. • Slower decision-making, as without reliable data, every operational and investment decision requires manual verification. • Weaker governance defensibility. When disruptions occur, the absence of documented, data-supported decision trails exposes municipalities to audit risk and public accountability challenges. Digital immaturity does not merely slow progress; it amplifies the impact of every other organisational stressor.

3. OVERVIEW OF THE 3-STAGE DIGITAL ENABLEMENT PROGRAMME 3.1 Programme logic and value proposition The 3-Stage Digital Enablement Programme gives municipalities a structured path from digital fragmentation to digital enablement. It does not start with technology. It starts with three questions: • Where are we now? • Where do we need to go? • How do we get there? Each question is answered by one stage of the Programme. Each stage builds on the one before it. No stage can be skipped without undermining what follows. The Programme produces three outcomes that unstructured digital investment rarely achieves: a documented understanding of current capability, a service-led vision of where the organisation needs to go, and a sequenced roadmap that is both implementable and defensible under audit.

TABLE 1: Four failure modes and their service delivery consequences Failure mode

Root cause

Service delivery consequence

Initiative fragmentation

Absence of overarching digital strategy

Integration debt, duplicated reporting, incompatible systems

Absent baseline

No structured maturity assessment

Misaligned investment, capability gaps unaddressed

Sequencing failure

Advanced tools procured before foundations

Tool underperformance, wasted expenditure

Change fatigue

Repeated cycles of underperformance

Institutional scepticism, reduced change capacity

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TABLE 2: The 3-Stage Digital Enablement Programme: overview Stage

Name

Primary question

Key output

Primary capability

Digital Readiness Baseline

Where are we now?

Pythia assessment report

Engineering understanding

Digital Visioning and Value Definition Where do we need to go?

Digital vision and priority matrix

Strategic foresight

Phased Digital Enablement Roadmap How do we get there?

Sequenced roadmap with dependencies

Digital advisory

3.2 The three stages The Programme moves through three stages in fixed sequence. Each stage has a defined question it answers, a primary method it uses, and a concrete output it produces. Together they form a single, coherent journey from honest self-assessment to implementable action. The logic of the sequence matters. Stage 1 produces the evidence that Stage 2 needs to define an honest vision. Stage 2 produces the target state that Stage 3 needs to build a defensible roadmap. 3.3 What makes this approach different Most digital programmes are led by technology. This one is led by service delivery. In order to achieve this, three technical capabilities must be integrated: • Engineering understanding of infrastructure. This ensures that digital priorities are grounded in physical reality. • Strategic foresight ensures that the vision is not just a response to today’s pressures but is adequate for tomorrow’s. It brings structured methods for anticipating how service demand, climate risk, and fiscal constraint will evolve, so that investment decisions are durable rather than reactive. • Digital advisory translates assessment and vision into practical, sequenced action. It covers technology architecture, data governance, system integration, and change management. No single discipline is sufficient. It is their integration across the three stages that produces a programme grounded in infrastructure reality, directed by service mandate, and implemented with digital rigour.

STAGE 1 Baseline

STAGE 2 Visioning

STAGE 3 Roadmap

Engineering Understanding (primary)

Strategic Foresight and Risk Assessment (primary)

Digital Advisory (primary)

Digital Advisory (supporting)

Engineering Understanding (supporting)

FIGURE 2: Three integrated technical capabilities across the three stages

4. STAGE 1: THE DIGITAL READINESS BASELINE 4.1 Know thyself as a precondition for investment Before the ancient city-states and kingdoms of the classical world sent delegations to the Oracle at Delphi, they were expected to have undertaken a process of preparation and honest self-examination. The inscription at the entrance to the temple, “Know thyself”, was not merely philosophical counsel. It was a precondition for receiving guidance that could be acted upon. A supplicant who arrived without clarity about their own situation could not ask a useful question and could not interpret a useful answer. The same principle applies with precision to municipal digital investment. Organisations that do not have an honest, structured understanding of their current digital capability cannot identify which investments will address genuine gaps, cannot sequence those investments logically, and cannot articulate a defensible rationale for the choices they make. The baseline is not a preliminary step before the real work begins. It is the foundation upon which every subsequent decision rests. 4.2 The Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework The Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework was developed through a process of structured research and iterative practitioner refinement. Its design draws on the academic literature in digital maturity, public sector governance, infrastructure management, and strategic foresight, and was tested against direct experience working with public sector organisations across Southern Africa in varying institutional, financial, and infrastructure contexts. The Framework is currently being piloted with public sector clients in Southern Africa, generating the empirical baseline data necessary to establish sector level benchmarks as there is insufficient current data in the South African municipal context. This will inform both future iterations of the Framework. In naming the Framework after the Oracle at Delphi, the authors acknowledge both the diagnostic function it performs and the humility it requires. The Framework does not prescribe outcomes. It provides a clear enough picture of current reality to make investment decisions grounded and defensible. The eight pillars are not independent variables. They constitute an interdependent system in which weakness in foundational domains, particularly Strategy and Leadership, Governance and Compliance, and Data

TABLE 3: The Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework: domain descriptions Pillar

Domain

What it assesses

Strategy and Leadership

Digital vision, executive commitment, strategic alignment

Governance and Compliance

Policies, data governance, regulatory alignment

Technology and Infrastructure

System architecture, connectivity, platform stability

Data and Analytics

Data quality, integration, analytical capability

People and Skills

Digital literacy, training, talent retention

Internal Operations

Process automation, workflow digitisation, efficiency

Service Delivery and Customer Experience

Digital service channels, responsiveness, citizen engagement

Innovation and Partnerships

Ecosystem engagement, pilot capability, co-development

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and Analytics, constrains the achievable maturity in all other domains. This interdependency is a central finding of the assessment process and a primary determinant of sequencing in Stage 3.

Service Delivery and Customer Experience People and Skills

Internal Operations

Data and Analytics

capability builds upward

Innovation and Partnerships

TABLE 4: The Pythia Framework five-level maturity scale Level

Designation

Characteristic

Baseline

Ad hoc, undocumented, reactive

Developing

Emerging awareness, some documentation, inconsistent application

Established

Documented processes, consistent application, measurable outcomes

Advanced

Integrated systems, data-driven decisionmaking, proactive management

Leading

Continuous improvement, innovation culture, sector leadership

4.3 Assessment methodology The Pythia assessment is conducted through a combination of structured stakeholder interviews, documentation review, system observation, and facilitated workshops. Across forty indicators distributed across the eight pillars, the process produces a scored maturity profile that identifies not only current capability levels but also the interdependencies and sequencing constraints that will shape the roadmap in Stage 3.

5.2 Strategic foresight integration Stage 2 draws on a suite of structured foresight methodologies to move beyond current state extrapolation toward the deliberate construction of a preferable future state. This is what Slaughter (1995) describes as structured anticipation rather than deterministic prediction. The distinction is important: a preferable future is not a prediction of what will happen but a normative statement of what the municipality needs

Foundational domains (assess first)

Each pillar is assessed against a five-level maturity scale, producing a profile of current capability that can be compared against a target state defined in Stage 2.

5. STAGE 2: DIGITAL VISIONING AND VALUE DEFINITION 5.1 Mapping service pressure The Pythia assessment establishes where the organisation currently stands. Stage 2 establishes where it needs to go. The visioning process begins with a structured mapping of the services and functions under the greatest operational and regulatory pressure. For example, in the water services context, this includes an assessment of non-revenue water losses and their primary causes, the regulatory obligations arising from Blue and Green Drop assessments, the infrastructure condition profile and its implications for maintenance and capital investment, and the human resource constraints affecting operational continuity. The output is a service pressure matrix that identifies which functions, if not digitally enabled, represent the greatest risk to service delivery continuity and governance compliance.

Technology and Infrastructure Governance and Compliance

Strategy and Leadership

FIGURE 3: The Pythia Framework pillar interdependency structure.

FIGURE 4: Illustrative maturity profile. Values are indicative and do not represent a specific municipality.

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Operational risk

Regulatory pressure Low

Medium

High

Monitor

Plan

Prioritise

Medium

Defer

Monitor

Plan

Low

Defer

Monitor

FIGURE 5: Service pressure mapping risk prioritisation matrix to achieve to fulfil its service delivery mandate under plausible future conditions. The integration of foresight into the visioning process ensures that digital priorities are defined not only in response to current pressures but with reference to foreseeable future conditions. A municipality that invests in digital capability adequate to today’s demands but not to tomorrow’s projected pressures is not building resilience. It is deferring the problem. 5.3 Defining the digital vision The output of Stage 2 is a digital vision that specifies, for each pillar of the Pythia Framework, the target maturity level that the municipality needs to reach to manage its service delivery mandate with adequate reliability and defensibility. This vision is deliberately bounded: it does not seek to reach Level 5 across all pillars but to identify the minimum adequate target for each domain given the organisation’s specific context. This bounded ambition is both practical and principled. It is practical because it makes the roadmap achievable within realistic resource and capacity constraints. It is principled because it directs investment to where it will produce the greatest service delivery return rather than to where it will produce the most impressive benchmark performance.

6. STAGE 3: THE PHASED DIGITAL ENABLEMENT ROADMAP 6.1 Backcasting as the sequencing methodology The roadmap is the instrument through which the gap between current

maturity, as established in Stage 1, and target maturity, as defined in Stage 2, is closed. It is a sequenced programme of capability development that encompasses technology, governance, people, and process in integrated sequence. The sequencing methodology underpinning Stage 3 is backcasting, a technique developed in long-range planning. Where forecasting projects current trends forward, backcasting begins with a defined future state and works backward to identify the decisions, investments, and capability developments that must occur, and in what sequence, to make that future state achievable. In the Programme, backcasting is applied as follows. The digital vision defined in Stage 2 constitutes the future state. The current maturity profile from Stage 1 constitutes the present state. The roadmap is constructed by identifying, from the future state backward, which capabilities must be in place before others can function, which investments are prerequisite to which outcomes, and which sequence of development is both logically coherent and institutionally achievable. This approach has two important advantages over conventional forward planning in the municipal context. First, it forces explicit consideration of dependencies: an organisation cannot commit to a roadmap that assumes data analytics capability in Year 2 without also committing to the data governance investments in Year 1 that make that capability possible. Second, it produces a roadmap that is inherently aligned to a defined outcome rather than to a set of available technologies, ensuring that investment choices remain subordinate to service delivery logic throughout the implementation period. A typical phased roadmap structure is indicated in table 5 below. The sequencing reflected is not arbitrary. It reflects the interdependency structure of the Pythia Framework: foundational pillars must reach adequate maturity before dependent pillars can be developed effectively. Investment in Service Delivery and Customer Experience digital channels, for example, is premature if the underlying data infrastructure and governance frameworks have not been established. The roadmap makes these dependencies explicit and ensures that the sequence of investment is governed by capability logic rather than by political visibility or vendor availability.

7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 7.1 What the Programme Delivers Municipalities that complete the Programme gain three outcomes that are difficult to achieve through unstructured digital investment: • System visibility. The organisation will have a documented, crossdepartmental understanding of its digital capability. This identifies which systems are underperforming, which data sources are unreliable, and which process gaps are creating the greatest operational risk. • Alignment between investment and mandate. Grounding digital priorities in service delivery obligation and regulatory requirement ensures that investment is directed to where it will produce measurable outcomes.

TABLE 5: Phased roadmap structure: three-tier sequencing framework Phase

Timeframe

Focus

Pythia pillars addressed

Outcome

Immediate

0 to 12 months

Stabilise foundations

Strategy and Leadership, Governance and Compliance, Data and Analytics

Baseline governance and data quality established

Medium-term

12 to 36 months

Enable operations

Technology and Infrastructure, People and Skills, Internal Operations

Operational systems integrated and staff capability built

Long-term

36 to 60 months

Optimise and innovate

Service Delivery and Customer Experience, Innovation and Partnerships

Service delivery improved, innovation ecosystem active

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TABLE 6: Value proposition summary Value outcome

What the municipality gains

Why it matters

Defensibility

Documented audit trail from baseline to roadmap

Governance compliance and audit readiness

Internal capability

Cross-departmental alignment and institutional knowledge

Reduced vendor dependence, sustainable capacity

Sustainable momentum

Incremental, sequenced progress with demonstrated outcomes

Avoidance of change fatigue, sustained political commitment

System visibility

Accurate, cross-departmental digital capability profile

Better operational and investment decisions

Service alignment

Digital priorities anchored in mandate and risk

Investment directed to greatest service delivery return

• Defensible decision-making. The combination of a structured baseline, a service-led vision, and a backcasted roadmap produces a decision trail that is defensible under audit. 7.2 Conclusions South Africa’s municipalities face a service delivery challenge of substantial and compounding complexity. Digital systems offer genuine potential to improve situational awareness, operational efficiency, and governance performance. However, this potential is only realised when investment is grounded in an honest assessment of current capability, aligned to specific service delivery mandates, and sequenced in a manner that reflects the interdependencies between digital domains. The 3-Stage Digital Enablement Programme, anchored at its diagnostic core by the Pythia 8-Pillar Digital Maturity Framework, provides a structured, evidence-based pathway from digital fragmentation to digital enablement. The Programme offers a disciplined, defensible, and institutionally achievable process for building digital capability in direct service of infrastructure stewardship and service delivery continuity. The Framework and Programme are at an active stage of applied development. Pilot engagements currently underway with public sector clients in Southern Africa are generating the empirical benchmarking data necessary to validate the Framework’s pillar structure, calibrate its maturity descriptors against observed municipal conditions, and establish sector level reference points against which individual municipalities can assess their own digital readiness. For municipalities ready to act: • assess current capability honestly • define a vision grounded in service mandate • sequence investment according to what the organisation can build on • resist the procurement of tools before foundations are in place • build internal capability alongside external support • document every investment decision in a manner that can withstand audit scrutiny These steps are the minimum conditions for digital investment to produce the outcomes it promises. The ancient cities that consulted the Oracle at Delphi were not seeking certainty. They were seeking the clarity necessary to act with confidence in conditions of uncertainty. South African municipalities face precisely these conditions. The Pythia Framework offers the same function. It provides clarity of where an organisation stands, what it genuinely needs, and in what sequence it must act to close the gap.

8. REFERENCES Auditor-General of South Africa, 2025. Consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes: MFMA 2023-24. Pretoria: Auditor-General of South Africa.

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Department of Water and Sanitation, 2023. Blue Drop, Green Drop and No Drop national assessment reports 2023. Pretoria: Department of Water and Sanitation. Inayatullah, S., 2008. Six pillars: futures thinking for transforming. Foresight, 10(1), pp.4-21. Khaled, A., 2025. Benchmarking water utility efficiency: global KPIs and economic metrics. LinkedIn Pulse [online]. 11 December. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/benchmarking-water-utility-efficiencyglobal-kpis-khaled-cmrp--lw8vf/ [Accessed 16 August 2026]. Mabry, B. et al., 2025. Operational efficiency: from reactive maintenance to predictive resilience. NCS Insights [online]. 29 October. Available at: https://www.ncs.co/en-au/insights/operational-efficiency-from-reactivemaintenance-to-predictive-resilience/ [Accessed 16 August 2026]. Mutchek, M. and Williams, E., 2014. Moving towards sustainable and resilient smart water grids. Challenges, 5(1), pp.123–137. Available at: https://doi. org/10.3390/challe5010123 [Accessed 16 August 2026]. Slaughter, R.A., 1995. The foresight principle: cultural recovery in the 21st century. London: Adamantine Press. Worp, A., 2026. Data as the foundation of intelligent water systems. In: Geospatial World Forum 2026, Utilities and Networks Session 3 [online]. Geospatial World. Available at: https://geospatialworld.net/gwf/2026/presentations/ utilities-and-network/session3/data-as-the-foundation-of-intelligentwater-systems_alexander-worp.pdf [Accessed 16 August 2026].

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PAPER 7

ENGINEERING SERVICE RESPONSE TO FUTURE DENSIFICATION THROUGH BACKYARD DWELLERS, INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS AND SMALL-SCALE RENTAL UNITS Johan Basson Pr.Eng.; B.Eng.; B.Com.; Honorary Fellow IMESA

ABSTRACT Urbanisation has become a global phenomenon leading to an increased demand for housing in urban areas. Densification often happens through the emergence of backyard dwellers, where people construct informal housing structures in the backyards of formal houses, or informal settlements on undeveloped land. Planning for this is a social and physical challenge to engineers in the field of urban development. It has a direct impact on the demand management and maintenance of services. Densification raises sustainability concerns, as informal settlements often lack access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation and electricity. Existing services are often unable to cope with the increased demand, causing breakdowns and service failures. Additionally, the increased pressure on already limited resources may lead to unsustainable development. Current civil engineering guidelines have served the industry well, but questions are increasingly being raised regarding their application in rapidly densifying environments and their ability to address higher population

densities. Current minimum service standards may require ongoing review in rapidly densifying environments to account for higher demands on the infrastructure services. To address these challenges, civil engineering infrastructure design plays a crucial role in supporting sustainable urban development. In the design process, engineers should consider, best practices, current guidelines, engineering principles, measured and expected demand, capital and life-cycle costing, maintenance and affordability, amongst other factors. Appropriate designs can provide infrastructure that supports the integration of informal settlements into the formal urban fabric, such as by providing basic services and improving access to transportation. By adopting a holistic approach, civil engineers can contribute to building more resilient and equitable urban areas. Civil engineers have a key role to play in designing infrastructure that supports sustainable urban development and the integration of informal settlements. By doing so, they can contribute to building more equitable and resilient cities that are able to meet the needs of all residents. Municipal engineers are required to investigate and propose adjusted engineering guidelines as a response to meet these challenges. This paper

FIGURE 1: Population Growth by Province (1996–2022); Source: Statistics South Africa Census

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FIGURE 2: Net Migration by Province (2011–2022); Source: Statistics South Africa Census

reviews current planning frameworks, engineering guidelines, emerging research and municipal operational experience relating to densification. The paper highlights the uncertainty currently faced by engineers when planning infrastructure for rapidly evolving urban environments and discusses the need for improved monitoring, empirical data collection and industry collaboration. It concludes that existing engineering standards remain an appropriate basis for planning and design, but that additional evidence is required to support future refinements to planning assumptions and infrastructure investment decisions. This could provide critical input to more Sustainable Cities delivering services to their communities.

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Urbanisation and Housing Demand Urbanisation continues to reshape South African cities. Population growth, migration to economic centres and ongoing housing shortages have resulted in increasing pressure on urban land, housing delivery and municipal infrastructure systems. Statistics South Africa data indicates significant growth in both population and household numbers over the past three decades. The Western Cape, in particular, continues to experience sustained inward migration and population growth. Figure 1 indicates the population in the

FIGURE 3: Growth in South African Households (1996–2022); Source: Statistics South Africa Census

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The Integrated Human Settlements Fiveyear Sector Plan 2022/23-2026/27: 2025/26 Review provides strategic guidance and a roadmap for implementing interventions at resolving human settlements within the City of Cape Town. Figure 4 indicates the projected demand on various housing provisions required in the City of Cape Town. The provision of basic interim services to informal settlements is essential to alleviate the urgent/emergency needs of services to access to potable water and sanitation and preventative measures to curtail the risks of disasters.

FIGURE 4: Total projected additional units, 2020-2040 by dwelling type; Source City of Cape Town Western Cape jumping from the fifth largest populated province in 1996 to the third largest in 2022 according to the Census 2022 report by Statistics South Africa. Urbanisation and population growth resulted in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, North-West, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape showing positive net-migration between 2011 and 2022. Figures 1 to 3 indicate national household numbers increased significantly faster than population growth, indicating changing household formation patterns and increasing housing demand even where population growth rates are relatively moderate. Consequently, a variety of housing responses have emerged, in addition to more conventional housing subsidised and GAP housing. In addition to the more conventional formal growth of cities and towns, greater focus is needed on addressing other housing options, including: • Backyard dwellers; • Informal settlements; • Small-Scale Rental Units (SSRUs); • Affordable rental accommodation; • Incremental housing extensions; • Informal subdivision of occupation; • Backyarder service programme; • Emergency housing; • Micro-developments. These forms of development have become important components of the urban housing response and increasingly contribute to urban densification.

TABLE 1: Number of informal areas and structure count within the City of Cape Town December 2023; Source City of Cape Town TYPES - AREAS OF INFORMALITY Backyarder Settlement

# SETTLEMENTS 57

# RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES 3975

IDA/TRA/Reblocked

14085

Informal Settlement

654

244587

Rental Stock Settlements

10392

Settlements to be investigated

1768

Small Farmers/Rural Settlement

3182

Upgraded Settlement

849

278044

Grand Total

1.2 Purpose of the Paper Much of the current discussion regarding densification focuses on infrastructure capacity and whether existing planning assumptions remain appropriate. Discussions with municipal engineers further highlight these emerging concerns, which are also reinforced by communities’ demands for better services. This paper focuses on these concerns, not particularly on urban growth in general, but rather on densification options and their effect on the provision of municipal engineering services. Operational departments increasingly report sewer blockages, sewer overflows, stormwater pollution, greywater disposal challenges, illegal service connections, refuse accumulation, maintenance difficulties, and reduced emergency and service access. These observations are frequently associated with densifying communities, yet limited verified empirical information exists regarding the relationship between these operational challenges and their underlying causes. These causes may include densification, informality, infrastructure condition, maintenance practices, user behaviour or combinations thereof. To address the urbanisation and densification challenges facing our towns and cities, planning and design guidelines have provided the municipal engineering industry with valuable guidance that remains applicable today. However, it is important to question and verify whether these guidelines continue to effectively reflect current conditions. This paper therefore does not advocate an immediate blanket change to engineering standards or planning methodologies. Existing planning frameworks remain the accepted basis for infrastructure planning and design. Rather, the paper seeks to highlight the uncertainty currently faced by engineers, discuss selected servicing challenges through practical project examples, identify areas requiring additional research and encourage industry discussion regarding future planning approaches. Although many examples presented originate from City of Cape Town investigations and projects, the issues discussed are not unique to Cape Town. Similar challenges are increasingly evident across South African municipalities and should therefore be viewed as a national engineering concern.

2. POLICY AND ENGINEERING PLANNING CONTEXT 2.1 Current Planning and Design Guides The concept of densification is not new within planning policy. Strategic planning documents guiding the City of Cape Town on densification include, amongst others: The Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF), CSIR Red Book, City of Cape Town Human Settlements Directives, Water and Sanitation

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but when rezoning or densification occurs, the impacts on available services should be considered.

FIGURE 5: Conceptual diagrams illustrating how generic house types can be added to and extended over time; Source: City of Cape Town, Guidelines and Roads and Stormwater Standards, the Integrated Human Settlements Five-year Sector Plan and various internal Council reports. All recognise the need for compact development, more efficient use of infrastructure and increasing residential densities. The Red Book provides planning guidance for evolving urban environments and remains one of the primary references for settlement planning and engineering service provision in South Africa. Municipal Water and Sanitation Guidelines and Roads and Stormwater Standards continue to provide the accepted basis for infrastructure design and service planning. These standards have evolved through decades of practical experience and remain essential planning tools. The Human Settlements Directives explicitly make provision for future densification and settlement intensification, including significantly higher residential densities than historically associated with low-income housing developments. This document placed a renewed requirement on municipal engineers to evaluate current design practice. 2.2 Densification Options 2.2.1 Formal subsidised residential blocks and plots The Human Settlements Directives indicate in Section 10.8 that formal residential plot sizes should be a minimum of 75m² ranging up to 100m². This is inter alia to promote incremental densification and the development of second or more dwellings on the plot. These plots can take the form of formal dwellings with future extensions and backyard dwellings, or serviced sites only where the dwellings can be more informal or formal. Although the plots’ engineering services are normally planned and designed according to existing standards, the future connections and servicing of the additional units, whether formal or informal, in the backyard require further attention and consideration in relation to services. 2.2.2 Flats and Group housing Flats are designed to discourage illegal extensions and second or more dwellings on the plot during the design and construction phases. Affordable rental developments can also be included in this option. The engineering services are normally planned and designed according to existing standards,

2.2.3 Small Scale Rental Units (SSRU) is an emerging form of land use not necessarily catered for in existing conventional land use planning practices. These can be individual properties to be used for multiple rental units. It is estimated in the Mayor’s 2025 Infrastructure Report by the City of Cape Town that thousands of informal SSRU units already exist, often built outside formal approval systems. These rental units can cater for between 3 and 12 units per erf, depending on the size of the property. Similar to the abovementioned options, the impacts on available services should be considered. 2.2.4 Emergency Housing and Servicing Informal Settlements These options can also include the formalisation of non-conventional housing options. Traditionally, services are not available or cannot be provided to the same standard as formal plots and can include temporary or alternative engineering services. Often, formalising existing informal settlements provides the opportunity to improve the existing lack of services and reduce pollution of stormwater systems. The additional load to existing services and the experience that temporary housing options become more “permanent” again require attention from municipal engineers.

3. OPERATIONAL IMPACTS OF DENSIFICATION AND INFORMALITY 3.1 Beyond Capacity-Based Planning Traditional civil infrastructure planning focuses on water demand, wastewater generation; traffic generation, parking requirements, stormwater runoff, and solid waste generation. These remain essential engineering planning parameters. However, municipal operational experience increasingly suggests that many challenges associated with densification may emerge through operational performance rather than capacity limitations alone. 3.2 Sewer Systems In several Cape Town service areas, operational teams have reported recurring sewer blockages in areas experiencing backyard densification and informal occupation, although the exact causal relationship remains uncertain. Reports include sewer blockages; sewer overflows; foreign objects entering sewer systems; illegal connections; and difficulties in accessing and maintaining infrastructure in densely occupied environments. While these problems are frequently associated with densification, the extent to which they are caused by increased loading, settlement form, behavioural practices or maintenance limitations remains uncertain. The relationship remains largely unquantified despite being routinely encountered by practitioners.

FIGURE 6: Small Scale Rental Units in Cape Town; Source: City of Cape Town,

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3.3 Stormwater and Environmental Systems Traditional stormwater planning focuses on runoff generation and flood management. Operational staff increasingly identify different concerns: greywater entering stormwater systems; sewer contamination of canals and waterways; litter accumulation; illegal discharges; and environmental degradation of rivers and wetlands. Consequently, a drainage system may be hydraulically adequate while simultaneously performing poorly from an environmental perspective. 3.4 Solid Waste Municipal practitioners increasingly raise concerns regarding: illegal dumping; refuse entering drainage systems; access and collection service pressures; and environmental impacts associated with waste accumulation. The relationship between occupation density and operational waste management costs remains poorly quantified. 3.5 Access, Parking, Transport and Serviceability Current Transport, Roads and Stormwater Standards place considerable emphasis on access and maintainability. In densifying communities, engineers frequently report: illegal parking and pedestrian access deterioration and illegal structures in road reserves; reduced refuse collection and constrained emergency vehicle access and movement; restricted maintenance access; and encroachment into service corridors. These impacts rarely appear within traditional demand calculations despite significantly influencing long-term operating costs and service reliability.

4. THE ENGINEERING UNCERTAINTY GAP Municipal infrastructure planning has traditionally relied upon recognised engineering methodologies, planning standards, empirical observations and professional judgement. These approaches have generally performed well and remain the foundation of infrastructure planning in South Africa. However, the urban environment within which these standards were developed continues to change. Densification also affects municipal services, both existing and planned, including planning and design, construction costs, and operation and maintenance considerations. Despite the frequency with which these concerns are raised, relatively little verified empirical information exists regarding cause-and-effect relationships, particularly given the changing land use environment. This creates an Engineering Uncertainty Gap. Engineers observe operational impacts but often lack sufficient data to confidently determine whether these impacts result primarily from increased density, informality, settlement morphology, user behaviour, infrastructure deterioration, lack of maintenance, inadequate futureproofing, or a combination of these factors. The uncertainty does not imply that current standards are incorrect. Rather, it highlights the need for a stronger evidence base to support longterm planning decisions and the appropriate application of standards and guidelines. 4.1 Why the Uncertainty Matters The significance of the uncertainty identified in this paper extends beyond hydraulic design, infrastructure capacity and engineering calculations. Municipal engineering infrastructure provides the platform upon which communities function and develop. The availability, reliability and affordability of water, sanitation, roads, stormwater management and waste

FIGURE 7: Du Noon informal settlement services directly influence public health, economic activity, environmental performance and overall quality of life. Unlike researchers, practising municipal engineers cannot wait for perfect information. Infrastructure decisions must be made continuously as developments are planned, services upgraded and communities expanded. Consequently, engineers are required to exercise professional judgement while simultaneously recognising the limitations of currently available information. The challenge is therefore not the absence of decision-making, but rather making responsible decisions in the presence of uncertainty. The challenge facing engineers is therefore not whether densification should occur. Rather, the challenge is whether sufficient empirical evidence exists to understand how changing settlement forms influence infrastructure performance, maintenance requirements and long-term serviceability. Dealing with densification in existing developed areas requires consideration of the availability of “spare” capacity, constraints, the potential for retrofitting existing municipal engineering infrastructure to accommodate changes in land use and densification, and how to plan and design future developments to be robust and able to respond to future challenges. These considerations are critical tools in the municipal engineer’s toolbox.

5. LESSONS FROM EXISTING DENSIFICATION AREAS Examples such as Delft, Khayelitsha and Du Noon demonstrate that densification frequently occurs incrementally over time. The Mayor’s 2025 Infrastructure Report by the City of Cape Town, reports that without structured support, service failure and unsafe conditions could escalate. These areas have become important examples because they reveal the practical realities encountered by municipalities when settlement patterns evolve beyond their original planning assumptions. Common observations include increasing occupation densities; backyard development; affordable rental accommodation; informal extensions; environmental management challenges; and maintenance pressures. Figure 7 indicates the overflow of toilets and greywater into the road and subsequent stormwater system. Improving access to basic services for informal households may include additional taps and toilets; raising platforms to prevent flooding; integrated environmental health services; communal ablutions and wash facilities; stormwater channels; greywater drainage; electrification infills; access roads; and appropriate buffers or firebreaks to reduce fire risks.

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TABLE 2: Impact of SSRUs on Municipal Infrastructure; Source City of Cape Town INFRASTRUCTURE DU NOON CURRENT SECTOR

DU NOON FUTURE

LANGA CURRENT

LANGA FUTURE

Water

Moderate

High pressure

Adequate

Severe constraints Low pressure

Major upgrades needed

Sanitation

Blockages

Major upgrades

Spare capacity

At risk

Partial capacity

Severe overload

Energy

Stable

Reinforcements

Adequate

Expansion needed Spare capacity

New substation required

Stormwater

Undersized pipes

Flooding risk

Limited capacity

High flood risk

Overwhelmed

Major attenuation upgrades

Urban mobility

Congested roads

Increased demand

Moderate congestion

Rank overcapacity Over capacity

Severe congestion

Urban waste management

Under pressure

Increased pressure

Under pressure

Increased pressure

Table 2 indicates the status on various service and maintenance components being put under pressure by densification actions in areas of the City of Cape Town. Lessons include that capacity is not always the primary constraint, access and maintainability often become limiting factors. Environmental impacts may emerge before hydraulic capacity is exceeded.

6. WELMOED ESTATE CASE STUDY Welmoed Estate provides an example of how municipal engineers are increasingly required to consider future densification during the planning stage of new developments. The project was planned during 2016/17 within a policy environment that explicitly recognised future settlement intensification and increasing densities. The Directives for the Planning, Design and Implementation of Human Settlement Projects in Cape Town were published in 2016. Engineering teams were therefore required to consider not only immediate service requirements, but also the long-term evolution of the settlement and the associated implications for future municipal infrastructure demand. Importantly, infrastructure planning proceeded using accepted design standards, engineering judgement and interdisciplinary engagement. Using the Directives and enumeration studies of the potential beneficiaries of the project, it was estimated and approved by the City of Cape Town that an average of three dwelling units per plot is plausible. Given the expected

75 m² PLOT

Single dwelling

Current Criteria 7 persons 600 l/day water 500 l/day sewage

Incremental Third Dwelling

Proposed Criteria 3.5 persons 300 l/day water 250 l/day sewage

Incremental Second Dwelling

3.5 persons 300 l/day water 250 l/day sewage

Single Dwelling

3.5 persons 300 l/day water 250 l/day sewage Totals 10.5 persons 900 l/day water 750 l/day sewage

FIGURE 8: Proposed Planning, Design Criteria for AADD Water and Sewage

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PHILLIPPI CURRENT PHILLIPPI FUTURE

Under pressure

future water demand associated with an average of 3.5 persons per dwelling, a demand of 900 l/plot per day provided a basis to allow for the expected average of three dwelling units per plot under incremental densification. An average of 750 l/plot per day was used for estimating daily sewage generation. The significance of the Welmoed case study is not the specific demand figures ultimately adopted, but rather the planning process that occurred. The project highlighted several broader questions: • How should future densification be accommodated? • How should resilience be incorporated into infrastructure planning? • How should uncertainty be managed? • How should serviceability be maintained over the long term?

7. EMERGING EVIDENCE A 2022 investigation into SSRUs and affordable rental accommodation provided useful insights into changing settlement patterns. The SSRU studies identified several emerging observations: • Most units were occupied by one or two adults. • Vehicle ownership was comparatively low and trip generation rates were similar to the rate of student apartments. • Public transport usage was significant. • Densified sites often displayed very high levels of impervious coverage for stormwater calculations. • Water demand findings were inconclusive and additional monitoring was recommended. In comparing this with the Welmoed assumptions, different plot sizes and uses will dictate the planning and design parameters, and geographic location could also influence the appropriate engineering solutions. The importance of these investigations lies not in the specific numerical findings but in demonstrating both the value and limitations of current datasets. The studies themselves concluded that additional monitoring and larger sample sizes would be required before definitive conclusions could be drawn. 8. REDUCING THE UNCERTAINTY The most effective response to uncertainty is the collection of reliable evidence. Municipalities should consider service provision capacity assessments in their focused development zones and across the total municipal area. In providing input into the uncertainty of densification, measuring existing units will provide more certainty to guide future decisions. As the saying goes: “measure, measure, measure”. This can take the form of: Water monitoring: Smart water metering; district metered areas; residential demand studies; occupancy versus consumption assessments. Sewer Monitoring: Flow monitoring in selected catchments; blockage databases; overflow tracking; maintenance event analysis.

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Stormwater Monitoring: Water quality monitoring; pollution studies; greywater investigations; imperviousness mapping. Serviceability Monitoring: Maintenance accessibility assessments; emergency response evaluations; refuse collection performance reviews. Long-term monitoring of existing neighbourhoods and selected new developments could provide valuable information regarding occupancy; water, sewage, solid waste, parking and transport demand; service performance; maintenance requirements; and environmental impacts. Local municipalities can also implement measurement of their water use by making use of the existing bulk and erf meters, and by analysing this data alongside densification data they can retrieve from census statistics. Analysis of existing data will provide a basis to make decisions and can be verified with further measurements and analysis. Industry collaboration through IMESA could facilitate the development and comparison of larger, nationally relevant datasets.

9. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Recognise informality and densification and enable the formalisation of appropriate municipal infrastructure and service delivery to these communities. 2. Existing standards should remain the primary basis for engineering decision-making until sufficient verified evidence exists to justify alternative approaches. However, continued application of existing standards should not prevent interim refinements, pilot studies, engineering innovation or local design responses where supported by sound engineering judgement and appropriate monitoring. 3. Expand municipal monitoring programmes for water, wastewater, stormwater and operational performance, as well as infrastructure capacity analysis. 4. Establish infrastructure performance databases tracking blockages, overflows, pollution incidents and maintenance interventions. 5. Encourage pilot projects and innovation where local circumstances warrant alternative approaches. 6. Document and evaluate interim design responses implemented by municipalities. 7. Promote collaboration between municipalities, universities, consultants and professional institutions. 8. Develop nationally coordinated datasets through IMESA and other professional forums. 9. Continue reviewing planning assumptions as additional evidence becomes available. 10. Update master and sector plans to align with real densification patterns and mitigate infrastructure strain.

methodologies. Rather, it highlights an Engineering Uncertainty Gap within which long-term infrastructure decisions are currently being made in the context of current and future planning and settlement trends. Densification requires good design, and “one size does not fit all”. Engineers will continue to make decisions based on best practice, professional judgement and experience. The appropriate response is therefore not the abandonment of existing standards, but the systematic collection of evidence capable of supporting future, evidence-based refinement of planning assumptions and infrastructure investment decisions. Existing standards remain the foundation of municipal engineering practice. Improved monitoring, professional collaboration, applied research and industry engagement provide the pathway toward reducing uncertainty and enhancing sustainable service delivery in increasingly densified urban environments. Municipal engineers have successfully adapted to changing urban environments for decades, and addressing future densification challenges will similarly require a combination of sound engineering judgement, appropriate standards and improved evidence-based planning.

REFERENCES City of Cape Town 2016. Directives for Human Settlements, City of Cape Town 2022. Report to Subcouncil 5 7/3/2022. Identification of areas within the jurisdiction of subcouncil considered appropriate to permit small-scale rental units, City of Cape Town 2024. Standards and Guidelines for Roads and Stormwater Version 4.0, City of Cape Town 2025. 2025 Mayor’s Infrastructure Report, City of Cape Town 2025. Integrated Human Settlements Five-year Sector Plan 2022/23-2026/27: 2025/26 Review (Annexure to the IDP 2022/232026/27), City of Cape Town 2026. “A City Reimagined – Managing growth together” Urban Planning &Design Conference, CSIR 2018. Guidelines for Human Settlement Planning and Design (The Red Book), Department of Cooperative Governance, Republic of South Africa.2016. Integrated Urban Development Framework (IUDF), HHO Consulting Engineers 2022. Review of Development Contributions Payable by Small Scale Rental Units, Jacobs, H.E., Geustyn, L.C., Loubser, B.F. & Van der Merwe, B. 2004. Estimating Residential Water Demand in Southern Africa, SANS 10252-1:2012. Water Supply and Drainage for Buildings, Statistics South Africa. Census 1996, 2001, 2011 and 2022, SMEC South Africa 2023. Welmoed Estate Planning Presentation to IMESA Western Cape Branch.

10. CONCLUSIONS Urbanisation, housing demand and densification will continue to shape South African cities for the foreseeable future. Existing planning frameworks, including the CSIR Red Book, Human Settlements Directives and municipal engineering standards, already recognise these realities and provide an appropriate basis for infrastructure planning and service delivery. Municipal engineers nevertheless increasingly encounter uncertainty regarding the relationship between densification, informality and infrastructure performance. Operational concerns relating to sewer blockages, pollution, maintenance requirements, accessibility and serviceability are widely reported, yet limited verified empirical information exists regarding the causes of these challenges. The paper does not conclude that current standards should be replaced, nor does it advocate immediate revisions to established planning

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PAPER 8

EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF FLY ASH AND STEEL DUST FOR ECO-FRIENDLY MORTARS IN LOW-COST HOUSING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Vhuhwavho Pertunia Mudau1, Marinus Smit2 1,2 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Vaal

and reached ~10.5 MPa after 28 days. Incorporating FASD in mortar as a partial cement replacement greatly improved its density, compressive strength, and flexural strength.

ABSTRACT The ever-increasing backlog of applications of government low-cost housing in South Africa has been a long-standing socio-economic challenge as presented in Figure 1. The use of mortar is extremely important in masonry structures because mortar serves as the binding agent that holds bricks together and distributes loads in the structure. The increased price of mortar, primarily due to the increase in cement prices, has been a major hindrance to the construction of low-cost housing in South Africa. Furthermore, the elevated carbon emission associated with cement production which is one of the key ingredients in masonry production has prompted for the search of an alternative cement replacement. The present study analyses the mechanical properties of mortars with the use of fly ash and steel dust (FASD) as partial replacements of cement in 5%, 10% and 15% proportions. The reason is based on twofold nature of the problem minimisation of the cost of house building in South Africa and the utilisation of waste materials for the benefit of the environment. Specimens of the mortar were manufactured and studied for density, compressive strength and flexural strength after 7 and 28 days. The outcomes demonstrate that the density of the specimen increases proportionally with the FASD content varying within the range of ~22402300 kg/m³ in control sample and ~2550-2600 kg/m³ in 15% replacement proportion. The maximal value of compressive strength was obtained at 10% replacement of cement with FASD and exceeded control sample and other proportions; the flexural strength increased up to 15% replacement

1. INTRODUCTION Housing is a basic human right and an essential criterion of socio-economic development and poverty alleviation. In South Africa, the government initiated the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), aiming to enhance the living standards by provision of low-cost housing to poor people (Akinsulire et al., 2024). Even though such a measure was taken, there still exists a serious backlog of housing due to rapid population growth, inequality, and high cost of building materials (Ngema et al., 2025). The high cost of masonry materials, especially cement mortar, is a major factor hampering delivery of low-cost housing. Mortar is an integral part of masonry construction since it ensures bonding of brickwork and blockwork, load transfer, strength, durability, and serviceability of structures (Arulmoly et al., 2021). Traditional mortar composition mainly includes cement, sand, and water. Cement is a principal binding component while sand provides volume and dimensions (Ludick et al., 2021; Madisha & Khumalo, 2021). However, cement is the most expensive ingredient of mortar, and the production process accounts for approximately 6-8% of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide (Bărbulescu & Hosen, 2025). Therefore, the use of supplementary cementitious materials can help decrease cement content and thus reduce costs and impacts on the environment. By-products of industries have been receiving a lot of focus in terms of being sustainable substitutes to traditional cementitious materials. It has been established that materials such as blast furnace slag, fly ash, silica fume, and metakaolin improve the performance of mechanical characteristics while lowering the carbon footprint of cement-based materials via secondary hydration reactions and matrix densification (Hamada et al., 2023; Jabba, 2023). Dobiszewska (2023) found out that substituting cement with rock dust at levels up to 10–15% does not negatively impact mortar characteristics, while Rajput (2018) noted an increase in compressive strength of 13.1% and 8.1% in M20 and M30 concrete, respectively, upon the full replacement of natural sand with crushed stone dust. Mohammed and Al-Numan (2024) noted an increase of 4.5% in 56-day compressive strength from adding lime powder. This proves the suitability of industrial by-products as sustainable substitutes. Despite their huge production volumes, there are still many industrial waste types that are poorly used. For instance, stockpiles of fly ash take up large land areas and present an environmental hazard by releasing dust into the air, contaminating the water resources, and posing rehabilitation risks. In a similar fashion, the byproduct of steel production known as steel dust is often deposited on landfills, thus raising the problem of its disposal

FIGURE 1: Housing Need by Province

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TABLE 1: Key chemical compositions (wt%) Samples

Chemical composition (wt%) SiO₂

TiO₂

Al₂O₃

Fe₂O₃

MnO

MgO

CaO

H2O-

K₂O

P₂O₅

Cr₂O₃

SO₃

Na2O

LOI

Total

Steel dust

1.15

0.15

5.65

70.52

2.45

8.98

5.78

0.98

0.23

0.67

3.47

100.01

Fly ash

19.514 0.442

8.121

3.216

0.048

1.767

28.856 -0.037

1.098

5.876

0.010

2.444

0.845

27.17

99.388

OPC cement

20.25

5.61

3.99

2.63

62.68

0.8

2.73

0.18

2.88

101.75

and possible contamination. Although fly ash has been studied extensively as an additive to cementitious materials, a combination of fly ash and steel dust as additives to cement at various percentages of cement replacement in mortars has not been explored yet. For this reason, the current research seeks to explore the mechanical behaviour of cement-sand mortars, where fly ash and steel dust from an electric arc furnace (FASD) have been used as cement replacement materials in proportions of 0%, 5%, 10% and 15%. This research is conducted with the intention of assessing the possibility of using such industrial wastes for making sustainable and economically viable mortar for affordable housing applications.

2. METHODOLOGY 2.1 Materials used Mortar was formulated using sand, steel dust, fly ash, and tap water. Steel dust which is an industrial by-product was procured from a steel manufacturing company in Gauteng, South Africa. As a base for comparison, a control mixture was also made using Ordinary Portland cement, sand, and tap water. The control sample provided a basis upon which the results produced by adding, steel dust, and legacy ash could be compared. The dry samples including fly ash, steel dust, and sand samples were oven-dried at 100 ± 5°C to have better control of their moisture content and eliminate any variation caused by free water. The partial replacement of cement with fly ash and steel dust also reduced the overall content of cement.

TABLE 2: Physical properties of samples Materials

Specific gravity

Ordinary Portland cement

3.10

Fly ash

2.77

Steel dust

3.50

Natural sand

2.60 A

TABLE 3: Mix design of mortar Mix

Cement g

Sand g

Water g

SD g

FA g

PD0

4000

1375

3140

FASD5

3800

1375

3140

100

FASD10

3600

1375

3140

200

FASD15

3400

1375

3140

300

2.2 Material characterisation The chemical constituents of the raw materials were analysed using the method of X-ray fluorescence (XRF). Table 1 presents the weight percentages (wt%) of the steel dust, fly ash, and Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) that were used in the experimental mixes. Additionally, Table 2 presents the specific gravity of the dry samples. 2.3 Mix design The mortar mixing process was conducted in compliance with the ASTM C305-06 standard, which offers standardized procedures for preparing laboratory specimens of hydraulic cement mortars. The amount of all ingredients was measured precisely based on the specified cement-to-sand ratio of 1:2.75. The number of mortar specimens was 24 specimens that were cured under water at 20°C and 25°C room temperature to ensure proper hydration and strength gain. The amount of cement was variable, sand (1375 g), and water (3140 g) in one batch as shown in Table 3. Furthermore, the partial replacement of cement was conducted using a blend of fly ash and steel dust, each of which contributed equally to the overall replacement percentage (0%,5%, 10%, and 15%). The specimens were named based on their binder compositions. The control specimen without any fly ash or steel dust replacement is labelled as PD0 while those with the combined replacement of both fly ash and steel dust are referred to as FASD specimens. The procedures related to the weighing of materials, casting of specimens, and water curing are shown in Figure 2. B

FIGURE 2: (A) Raw materials - (A1) sand, (A2) legacy ash, (A3) cement, (A4) steel dust; (B) prepared molds; (C) specimens under water curing

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2.4 Testing The casted samples were evaluated mechanically to determine their density, compressive and flexural strength. The mechanical tests were conducted at curing age 7 days and 28 days, respectively. 2.4.1 Compressive strength Compressive strength test was conducted using a compression testing machine (CTM), whose loading rate is regulated at 0.9 kN/s (or 1.25 mm/ min loading rate depending on the machine settings) according to ASTM C109. Standard cubes were placed in the centre of the platens of the testing machine to ensure an even load application on the sample as depicted in Figure 3. Continuous loading up to failure was conducted on the sample. The maximum load was noted where the failure occurred. The compressive strength of each test cube was determined using the formula (2.1): (2.1) Where: = compressive strength (MPa) = maximum load at failure (N) = loaded area of specimen (mm²)

by two steel rods with a clear span of 170 mm, and load was applied at mid-span of the sample in a three-point bending test arrangement. Figure 4 shows the testing setup. The load was applied at a displacement rate of 2 mm/min until failure occurred. The maximum load at breakage was noted and then used to determine the flexural strength of the mortar. For a three-point bending test, flexural strength is calculated as presented in Equation 2.2: (2.2) Where: • = flexural strength / modulus of rupture (MPa) • = maximum load at failure (N) • = span length (mm) • = width of specimen (mm) • = depth (thickness) of specimen (mm)

FIGURE 4: Flexural testing machine

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Density The inclusion of FASD resulted in the clear densification of the material with its density ranging between 2240 and 2300 kg/m³ to 2550 and 2600 kg/m³ for 15% FASD presented in Figure 5. The progressive densification demonstrates the efficiency of FASD on densifying the material, which is due to the dominance of steel dust with high density. The densification is achieved due to the high Fe₂O₃ (70.52 wt%) content in steel dust and high specific gravity (3.50 compared to 2.60 for natural sand). The densification of the material will result in denser packing of particles and thus less pores in the matrix structure. These outcomes are inconsistent with the results by Phan et al. (2025), who identified decreased unit weights with increased amount of fly ash due to low specific gravity of this component. In this study, the inclusion of steel dust counteracted the effect, making it possible for an overall increase in density despite fly ash inclusion. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that steel dust plays a special role in terms of being not only filler but also densifier. Furthermore, the higher densities obtained at 28 days in comparison with 7 days prove the continuous hydration and pozzolanic reactions causing pore refinement and matrix densification. This mechanism of densification was noted by Lliso-Ferrando et al. (2025) in the context of recycled brick powder addition that caused porosity reduction and improved durability performance. The outcome shows that FASD leads to both waste valorisation and microstructure improvement. As a result, the matrix becomes denser and more homogeneous, which means that it will have lower permeability, improved durability and enhanced mechanical performance.

FIGURE 3: Compressive strength testing 2.4.2 Flexural strength The modulus of rupture of the mortar was investigated to examine its capacity to withstand bending forces while under load. The experiments were carried out in accordance with the ASTM C348 Standard Test Method for Flexural Strength of mortars. The flexural strength was assessed through the flexural bending tests using a displacement-controlled load application method. Rectangular cubes of dimension 200 × 100 × 60 mm were used in the flexural test procedure. In flexural testing, each sample was supported

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3.2 Compressive strength The use of FASD led to a marked improvement in compressive strength, which correlated well with the densification of the matrix. As replacement increased from 0% to 10%, the strength increased steadily until 10% was attained, where the compressive strength after 28 days exceeded that of both the control and other modified mixes as indicated in Figure 6. The reason for this improvement is due to better particle packing, low voids, and effective load transfer, facilitated by high Fe₂O₃ content (70.52 wt%) and specific gravity of the steel dust.

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FIGURE 5: Density of mortar mixes As the amount of FASD reached 15%, there was a slight reduction in the compressive strength despite the ongoing process of densification. The reduction indicates that an increase in the amount of LASD leads to a disruption of the binder continuity and introduces microstructural heterogeneities that affect stress transfer effectively. This pattern conforms with the observations of Phan et al. (2025), who found optimum strength levels in cases of moderate fly ash dosing, while increased replacement ratio negatively affected performance owing to dilution effects despite the continuing pozzolanic reaction. Unlike in fly ash blends, which develop their strength from the development of secondary C-S-H compounds, FASD increases the strength by physical densification and mechanical bonding. Lliso-Ferrando et al. (2025) similarly confirmed that the use of waste-based binders like recycled brick powder could be maintained and improved with optimized usage mainly through pore refinement and better matrix structure. The 10% FASD is the best combination of mortar mix resulting in maximum compressive strength. 3.3 Flexural strength It was observed that there was a systematic improvement in flexural strength with an increase in replacement percentage and curing period in the case of modified mortars with FASD. The baseline results for the control mixture showed readings of about 5.5 MPa after 7 days and 6.5 MPa after 28 days. On the other hand, the use of FASD brought about an improvement such that the results were 6.5/7.5 MPa (5%), 7.5/9.0 MPa (10%), and 8.5/10.5 MPa (15%) after 7 and 28 days, respectively as depicted in Figure 7. The angular shape and surface roughness of the steel dust particles increase the integrity of ITZ, embedding into the cement matrix and inhibiting the development of cracks. The described phenomenon is comparable to

FIGURE 6: Compressive strength of mortar mixes

the one discovered by Naenudon et al. (2022) with the use of waste fibre cement particles in geopolymer mortars where they served as microreinforcements and increased flexural strength with moderate substitution ratios. Consequently, in the case of FASD, the particles do not only densify the matrix but increase its mechanical stability under bending. A second rationale behind the phenomenon is associated with the filler and nucleation effect. The fine steel dust particles fill the voids in the matrix and serve as the nucleation sites for the formation of C-S-H hydrates, thus increasing the density of the matrix structure. Similarly, Phan et al. (2025) have found out that nano-silica accelerates the hydration process and fills the spaces between binder particles, resulting in higher flexural strength. Even though steel dust cannot be regarded as the pozzolanic material like fly ash, it can contribute to the cement hydration. Furthermore, the study findings reveal the significance of stress redistribution. Flexural strength is reliant on how much the matrix can withstand tensile stresses, while the presence of FASD increases its resistance by distributing the stresses and delaying cracks from developing. The rationale behind this follows what Lliso-Ferrando et al. (2025) have found in that recycled brick powder decreased the porosity level and increased resistivity, which indirectly improves tensile resistance.

4. CONCLUSIONS The inclusion of steel dust (FASD) as part of the cement substitution material greatly improved the physico-mechanical properties of the mortar. As the amount of FASD was increased, there was progressive improvement in density, which can be explained by the better densification of the matrix due to the higher specific gravity and filler characteristics of the steel dust. The compressive strength was optimized at 10% substitution as it provided an efficient particle arrangement, good load transfer, and continuous binder phase. Flexural strength, on the other hand, continued to increase with the increase in the FASD content, showing peak strength at 15% substitution due to better crack bridging ability and efficient stress transfer. These findings show the potential of using a combination of fly ash and steel dust it as a sustainable cement replacement in high performance mortars. 5. RECOMMENDATIONS Future research must concentrate on understanding the microstructural principles underlying the improved properties of the FASD-based mortars. The application of advanced methods of characterization, such as SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy), XRD (X-ray Diffraction), and MIP (Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry), is vital for identifying the ITZ (Interfacial Transition Zone) development, hydration products formation, and pore structure refinement that all contribute to the properties development. Research

FIGURE 7: Flexural strength of mortar mixes

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must also move beyond laboratory tests toward full-scale validation of the results in real-life conditions. The properties of FASD-based building materials for both structural and non-structural purposes, for instance, in pavement construction, prefabricated construction, or masonry units, must be thoroughly investigated. The focus should be on their flexural behaviour, crack resistance, and long-term durability under combined mechanical and environmental loading. Finally, an exhaustive life cycle assessment (LCA) is needed to evaluate the sustainability implications of FASD use. This would include the evaluation of CO₂ reduction, cost-efficiency, and waste revalorization possibilities.

6. REFERENCES Akinsulire, A. A., Idemudia, C., Okwandu, A. C., and Iwuanyanwu, O. (2024). Sustainable development in affordable housing: policy innovations and challenges. Magna Sci. Adv. Res. Rev., 11, 090–104. doi: 10.30574/ msarr.2024.11.2.0112 Arulmoly, B., Konthesingha, C. and Nanayakkara, A. (2021). Effects of blending manufactured sand and offshore sand on rheological, mechanical and durability characterization of lime-cement masonry mortar. European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, 26(15), pp.7400–7426. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/19648189.2021.1995506. ASTM C109 (2020). Standard Test Method for Compressive Strength of Hydraulic Cement Mortars (Using 2-in. or [50-mm] Cube Specimens). ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA. ASTM C348 (2020). Standard Test Method for Flexural Strength of HydraulicCement Mortars. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA. Bărbulescu, A. and Hosen, K. (2025). Cement industry pollution and its impact on the environment and population health: A review. Toxics, 13(7), p.587. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics13070587. Dobiszewska, M., Bagcal, O., Beycioğlu, A., Goulias, D., Köksal, F., Płomiński, B., Ürünveren, H. (2023). Utilization of rock dust as cement replacement in cement composites: an alternative approach to sustainable mortar and concrete productions. Journal of Building Engineering, 69, 106180. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2023.106180 Fayomi, G. U., Onyari, E. K., and Mini, S. E. (2024). Evaluating social housing potential for low-income urban dwellers in Johannesburg. Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, 9:100737. doi:10.1016/j. cscee.2024.100737 Gehlot, M. R. and Shrivastava, S. (2024). Sustainability assessment of granite cutting waste incorporated cement sand rendering mortar: Technical, environmental, cost, and social parameters. Journal of Cleaner Production, 480, 144108. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.144108. Gupta, R., Gregg, M., Lalande, C., and Herda, G. (2015). Green building interventions for social housing. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. Hamada, H. M., Abed, F., Humada, A. M., Al, M. S., Majdi, A., Yousif, S. T. and Thomas, B. S. (2023). Effect of silica fume on the properties of sustainable cement concrete. Journal of Materials Research and Technology, 24, pp.8887–8908. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2023.05.147. Housing Development Agency (HDA) and National Association of Social Housing Organisations (NASHO) (2013). Reviving our inner cities: social housing and urban regeneration in South Africa. Johannesburg: Housing Development Agency. Jabbar, A. (2023). Using cementitious materials to enhance concrete properties and improve the environment: A review. Wasit Journal of Engineering Sciences, 11(3), pp.140–154. doi:https://doi.org/10.31185/ ejuow.vol11.iss3.482. Lliso-Ferrando, J. R., Arenos-Barrachina, A., Monzon-Bello, P. and Valcuende, M. (2025). Durability of mortars with partial cement replacement by

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recycled brick powder. Applied Sciences, 15, 4133. https://doi.org/10.3390/ app15084133 Ludick, A., Dyason, D., and Fourie, A. (2021). A new affordable housing development and the adjacent housing-market response. South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, 24:a3637. doi:10.4102/ sajems.v24i1.3637 Madisha, M. G., and Khumalo, P. (2021). Social housing policy implementation challenges in South African local municipalities. In: 6th Annual International Conference on Public Administration and Development Alternatives. Pretoria, South Africa: University of South Africa. Mironyuk, I., Tatarchuk, T., Paliychuk, N., Heviuk, I., Horpynko, A., Yarema, O. and Mykytyn, I. (2021). Effect of surface-modified fly ash on compressive strength of cement mortar. Materials Today: Proceedings, 35, pp.534–537. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.10.016. Mohammed, B. K. and Al-Numan, B. S. (2024). Effectiveness of limestone powder as a partial replacement of cement on the punching shear behavior of normal- and high-strength concrete flat slabs. Sustainability, 16(5), 2151. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su16052151. Naenudon, S., Vilaivong, A., Zaetang, Y., Tangchirapat, W., Wongsa, A., Sata, V. and Chindaprasirt, P. (2022). High flexural strength lightweight fly ash geopolymer mortar containing waste fibre cement. Case Studies in Construction Materials, 16, e01121. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j. cscm.2022.e01121. Ngema, N. N., Bokhari, A. and Mbanga, S. L. (2025). Assessing the impact of social housing on urban regeneration in South African cities. Frontiers in Sustainable Cities, 7:1468964. doi:10.3389/frsc.2025.1468964 Phan, V. T.-A., Tran, H.-B. and Vo, V.-T. (2025). Potential usage of fly ash and nano silica in cement mortar for a sustainable construction. Transportation Research Procedia, 85, pp.135–142. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j. trpro.2025.03.143. Rajput, S. P. S. (2018). An experimental study on crushed stone dust as fine aggregate in cement concrete. Materials Today: Proceedings, 5, 17540– 17547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2018.06.070 Zintle Mahlati (2023). Government increases the money it spends on RDP, social housing. News24. Available at: https://www.news24.com/ politics/government-increases-the-money-it-spends-on-rdp-socialhousing-20230331

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PAPER 9

RECENT GEOMETRIC DESIGN RESEARCH: EXTRACTING ACTIONABLE PRACTICES FOR MUNICIPAL ROAD UPGRADES

Sihle Ndumiso Ngema Naidu Consulting (Pty) Ltd

ABSTRACT Municipal road upgrade projects are usually delivered under tight budget limits, short construction windows and a strong preference to retain the existing alignment. Under these conditions, geometric issues may be left unresolved on the assumption that meaningful improvement would require costly realignment. This paper reviews recent geometric design research to identify practical lessons for municipal road upgrades and to consider which consistency-related improvements may be justified within typical project constraints. The review draws mainly on recent work on operating speed, geometric consistency, sight distance, three-dimensional alignment coordination, superelevation treatment and local curve refinement. Most of this evidence comes from rural and interurban highway studies. The paper therefore does not assume direct transfer to all municipal streets. Instead, it focuses on municipal corridors where highway-like geometric conditions still arise, such as urban arterials, peri-urban links, freight routes and other upgrade corridors with meaningful speed transitions, restricted sight distance or constrained horizontal and vertical alignment. The review suggests that consistency-based assessment is useful in the municipal context not because it automatically leads to large geometric changes, but because it helps project teams ask the right scoping questions before budgets, briefs and tender scopes are fixed. In some cases, the appropriate response may be improved warning and delineation, revised speed management, visibility clearing or localised geometric refinement. In others, targeted widening treatment, superelevation or runoff adjustment, sight-distance correction, local profile modification or more detailed design review may be warranted. Only a smaller group of cases is likely to justify major reconstruction. The paper argues for a case-by-case approach rather than a universal rule. Its contribution is a practical municipal scoping screen for municipalities and their consultants: how to interpret recent geometric design research, how to identify consistency-related problems early in project development, and how to match the response to the corridor, road function, risk, delivery route and available budget. The screen is intended to help distinguish issues that can be addressed through internal operations or maintenance, issues that should be included in the consultant’s design scope, and issues that require separate capital intervention. In this way, the paper seeks to translate current research into realistic upgrade practice rather than idealised redesign. Keywords: Geometric design consistency; municipal road upgrades; project scoping; operating speed; road function; delivery-route decision

1. INTRODUCTION This paper developed from a broader review of recent geometric design research, where many current studies appeared to revisit fundamental design concerns such as operating speed, driver expectancy, sight distance, curve treatment, superelevation and alignment coordination. These concerns are familiar to experienced geometric designers, but in municipal projects they may remain embedded in individual judgement rather than being made explicit during early scoping. The practical question is therefore how selected parts of that judgement can be made visible earlier in the project life cycle, especially for multidisciplinary teams and younger engineers. This is important because road problems should not always be viewed in isolation: a resurfacing, stormwater, widening or safety project may create an opportunity for a targeted geometric improvement if the issue is recognised before budgets, briefs and tender scopes are fixed. This paper responds by translating recent geometric design research into municipal scoping prompts that support better investment decisions and help identify where modest, localised improvements may be incorporated into works that are not initially framed as geometric upgrades. 1.1 Municipal road projects are scoped under constraint Municipal road projects are rarely scoped in an unconstrained design environment. Rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, widening and safety projects are usually developed within existing corridors, live traffic conditions, limited road reserve, service conflicts, land constraints, funding limits and delivery pressure. These conditions often make major geometric change difficult, even where the existing road does not fully support the current function of the corridor. The pressure is not only technical. Municipal infrastructure delivery in South Africa operates within a context of uneven asset information, project delays, quality concerns and funding pressure. The 25-year review of local government noted that a proportion of municipalities had not assessed the condition of their road infrastructure and that a proportion of road projects exceeded completion dates (COGTA 2025). The Auditor-General’s reporting on local government infrastructure has also highlighted recurring findings on project delays, poor construction quality and overspending (AGSA 2025). These are not geometric design findings in themselves, but they show why municipal scoping decisions need to be practical, timely and well targeted. In this environment, the project brief often begins from the most visible defect: a failed pavement, flooding problem, edge break, narrow section, safety complaint or public transport need. That is understandable, but it creates a risk that the project is defined too narrowly before the road problem has been properly understood. A municipality does not need to complete full geometric design before tender, but it does need enough front-end review to know what kind of road problem it is procuring a solution for.

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1.2 The risk of treating road problems in isolation Roads do not operate as separate pavement, drainage, safety and geometric systems. A road section that appears to require resurfacing may also include a sight-distance issue, an unexpected speed transition, poor curve readability, inadequate tracking for buses or trucks, problematic crossfall, or weak coordination between horizontal and vertical alignment. If these issues are not recognised early, the project may improve the visible defect while leaving the underlying operating problem in place. This is especially relevant where municipal roads perform higher-order functions. Some municipal corridors operate as urban arterials, periurban links, freight routes, industrial access roads, bus or taxi corridors, or constrained routes through hilly terrain and existing settlements. In such cases, road ownership alone is not the deciding factor. The important question is how the road is used, who uses it, and whether its existing geometry supports the present speed environment and road function. Road safety data also supports the need to keep the road environment in view. The RTMC’s July to September 2024 road safety report recorded 3 205 fatalities and noted that pedestrians made up 45.2% of fatalities in that period (RTMC 2024). The same report identified road and environmental factors such as sharp bends, poor visibility, poor road marking, poor lighting, blind rises and poor road surface among recorded contributory factors (RTMC 2024). These figures do not mean that every municipal rehabilitation project is a geometric project. They do, however, reinforce that road safety, visibility, speed environment and driver expectancy should not be separated too quickly from pavement, drainage or routine upgrade work. The value of early scoping is therefore not to force wholesale redesign. It is to identify where a targeted geometric improvement could be incorporated into another road investment while the scope is still flexible. In some cases the appropriate response may be warning signs, delineation, vegetation clearing or speed management. In other cases it may be a consultant design-scope item such as sight-distance review, swept-path assessment, crossfall correction, local widening or three-dimensional alignment review. In more severe cases, the issue may need to be recorded as a separate capital intervention. 1.3 From tacit judgement to project-stage checks Experienced geometric designers often recognise these issues through practice. They may identify a curve that does not read correctly, a tangentto-curve transition that invites excessive approach speed, a crest or sag that limits visibility, a tight curve that is unsuitable for the road function, or a widening treatment that would affect vehicle path and driver comfort. This judgement is valuable, but it is not always formalised in municipal project briefs, preliminary design reviews or scoping checklists. Recent geometric design research is useful because it makes some of these familiar concerns more explicit. Studies on three-dimensional alignment coordination emphasise that drivers experience the road as an integrated visual and operational environment, not as separate plan, profile and crosssection elements (de Santos-Berbel & Zimmermann 2025). Research on geometric design consistency similarly shows that operating speed, speed differentials, driver expectancy and alignment sequence can be used to assess whether a road section is likely to operate consistently. For municipal practice, the issue is not whether this research should be imported directly as a new design standard. It should not. Many of the studies are based on international, rural or interurban highway contexts, and their model values, thresholds and crash relationships are context-specific. Their more useful contribution is that they help convert tacit professional judgement into project-stage questions: what should be checked, when should it be checked, and who should own the response?

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This is particularly important for multidisciplinary teams. Municipal road projects may be led by pavement, stormwater, transport planning, traffic, road safety, project management or asset-management priorities. A simple scoping screen can help these teams recognise when specialist geometric input may be needed, without expecting every team member to carry decades of geometric design experience. 1.4 Aim and contribution of the paper The aim of this paper is to translate selected recent geometric design research into a practical municipal scoping screen for road rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, safety and upgrade projects. The proposed screen is intended to help project teams ask the right geometric questions before budgets, briefs and tender scopes are fixed. The contribution is not a new design standard, road safety audit procedure or compliance checklist. It is a frontend scoping aid that helps municipal teams distinguish between three broad response routes: issues that can be addressed through internal operations or maintenance, issues that should be included in the consultant’s design scope, and issues that require a separate capital intervention. The paper therefore uses recent research as a source of prompts rather than direct design prescriptions. Its central position is that municipal road projects should not be scoped only around the most visible defect where road function, operating speed, sight distance, curve treatment or threedimensional alignment may also influence the appropriate response. In this sense, the paper transfers questions, not answers.

2. APPROACH AND TRANSFERABILITY 2.1 Targeted scoping review of recent geometric design research This paper draws from a targeted scoping review of recent geometric design research. The review approach was appropriate because the purpose was not to calculate a pooled safety effect or test a single hypothesis, but to identify current research themes and translate them into practical questions for municipal project scoping. The wider review searched recent literature on highway and roadway geometric design, including horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, geometric design, cross-section, superelevation, roadway design and highway design. Searches were undertaken in Scopus and Web of Science and limited to recent publications from 2020 onwards. The combined search produced 1 958 records before duplicate removal and screening. Following title screening, abstract screening and full-text relevance review, a wider set of 54 papers was retained for detailed consideration. For the present paper, the wider review was narrowed to papers with relevance to municipal road rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, widening, safety and upgrade projects. Sixteen papers were identified as a municipal focused candidate set. Thirteen of these were actively charted after excluding papers that were inaccessible or less relevant to the municipal scoping focus. The active charting set was then grouped according to the role each paper played in developing the proposed municipal scoping screen. 2.2 Charting and synthesis The selected papers were charted according to their role in developing the proposed municipal scoping screen, rather than treated as equal sources of design guidance. Two papers formed the conceptual spine: one on three-dimensional alignment coordination and driver perception, and one on geometric design consistency and corridor-to-element screening. The remaining papers were grouped as support modules that helped populate specific prompts on sight distance, road function, curve widening, operating speed, curve prioritisation, constrained geometry, superelevation and future local evidence needs. Table 1 summarises how the reviewed papers were

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TABLE 1: Role of reviewed papers in developing municipal scoping prompts Role in synthesis

Reviewed papers

Main issue

Scoping contribution

Conceptual spine

de Santos-Berbel & Zimmermann (2025); Sharma et al. (2026)

3D alignment, driver perception Review the corridor as drivers experience it, then and geometric consistency. assess individual elements.

Sight distance and road-function support

Megat-Johari et al. (2025); Rinaldi et al. (2021)

Sight distance, vertical profile and visibility risk.

Trigger sight-distance/profile review where road function, constrained profiles or night-time visibility warrant it.

Curve widening and design-vehicle support

Günay (2023); Ciampa & Olita (2022)

Curve widening, swept path, tight curves and constrained geometry.

Check retained-curve/design-vehicle fit; consider swept-path review, widening or local refinement.

Operating-speed and horizontal-curve consistency support

Tottadi & Mehar (2024); Godumala & Operating speed, speed Ravi Shankar (2024); Atif et al. (2026) reduction and vehicle mix.

Ask whether retained geometry creates unexpected speed changes, especially on higherspeed or mixed-traffic corridors.

Prioritisation and applied consistency support

Chakraborty & Gates (2024); Igene & Ogirigbo (2021)

Curve safety, sequence and global/local consistency.

Prioritise higher-risk curve sequences and move from corridor screen to local issue and delivery route.

Parameter review and superelevation/runoff.

Supports local evidence and review of assumptions; does not form the core screen.

Background and future García-Ramírez et al. (2025); Trakakis local-evidence support et al. (2025)

translated into municipal scoping triggers, with emphasis on what project teams should ask before a rehabilitation or upgrade scope is fixed, rather than on transferring models, equations or numerical thresholds. 2.3 Transferability position A central limitation is that the reviewed technical papers are not South African municipal case studies. Many are based on rural, interurban or international highway contexts. Their findings are therefore not adopted as direct design criteria for South African municipal roads. The paper does not transfer model values, crash factors, thresholds, equations, vehicle parameters or proposed design-rule changes into local practice. Instead, the review transfers the underlying questions raised by the literature. These include whether drivers can read the road consistently, whether the operating speed environment matches the retained geometry, whether sight distance is adequate, whether curve treatment supports the road function, whether heavy vehicles or buses require additional consideration, and whether horizontal and vertical alignment work together from the driver’s perspective. These questions are relevant to municipal roads where similar geometric mechanisms arise, particularly on urban arterials, peri-urban links, freight or industrial routes, bus and taxi corridors, constrained corridors, steep routes and existing roads carrying a higherorder function. The application of each question must still be filtered through local road function, user mix, speed environment, available road reserve, land and service constraints, safety history, funding route and the likely delivery mechanism. In this sense, the proposed screen is not a compliance tool or substitute for professional judgement. It is a scoping aid that helps decide whether an issue should be handled through internal operations or maintenance, included in the consultant’s design scope, or recorded as a separate capital intervention. The paper transfers questions, not answers. 2.4 Use of AI-assisted tools AI-assisted tools were used to support literature organisation, spreadsheet structuring, preliminary extraction, consistency checking, drafting support, and the generation of draft table/figure visuals. The tools were not used as a substitute for author judgement. The selection of the final paper set, interpretation of the literature, transferability decisions, synthesis of implications, figure content and final conclusions remained under the control of the author. AI-assisted outputs were reviewed, corrected and integrated only where they supported the paper’s argument.

3. WHAT RECENT GEOMETRIC DESIGN RESEARCH HELPS MUNICIPAL TEAMS ASK The reviewed papers do not provide a ready-made design manual. Their value is that they make familiar geometric design concerns more explicit and provide a technical basis for asking better questions during scoping. For municipal practice, the important output is not the direct adoption of models or thresholds, but the translation of recurring geometric issues into practical prompts that can be considered before a rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, widening or safety project is fixed in scope. 3.1 Three-dimensional alignment and driver perception The first major prompt is that the road should be considered as a threedimensional operating environment, not only as separate horizontal, vertical and cross-sectional elements. De Santos-Berbel et al. (2025) highlight that alignment coordination can affect how drivers perceive the road ahead, including whether curves are visible, whether the path reads clearly and whether sight distance is affected by the interaction between plan and profile. This is especially important on existing roads, where the designer’s freedom to correct alignment may be limited. For municipal projects, the practical question is whether the existing road ‘reads’ safely from the driver’s perspective. A pavement rehabilitation or stormwater project may retain the existing centreline and profile, but that does not mean the alignment should be accepted without a basic visual and consistency screen. Where horizontal and vertical curvature overlap, where a curve begins near a crest or sag, or where a constrained corridor limits visibility, the project team should ask whether a more detailed geometric review is required before the scope is locked. This does not mean that every project must include a full threedimensional redesign. It means that significant municipal road investments should include a quick screen for hidden alignment, sight-distance and driver-perception issues. If the screen identifies no material concern, the project can proceed within its original scope. If it identifies a concern, the municipality can decide whether the response is operational, a consultant design-scope item, or a separate capital intervention. 3.2 Geometric consistency and corridor-to-element screening The second major prompt is that geometric consistency should be considered at corridor level before isolated elements are reviewed. The geometric design consistency review shows that consistency can be assessed through several lenses, including operating speed, speed differentials, driver

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workload, alignment indices and driver perception (Sharma et al. 2026). The common principle is that drivers should not encounter unexpected changes in the road environment that require sudden or uncomfortable adjustment. For practical use, this supports a two-stage approach. The first stage is a corridor-level screen: does the road function, speed environment and sequence of elements appear consistent? The second stage is an elementlevel screen: which curve, transition, sight-distance restriction, crossfall issue or constrained section requires closer review? This matters because budgets seldom allow every element of a road to be corrected. A practical screen should therefore help teams identify where the risk is concentrated. This approach also avoids treating geometric design as a late compliance check. Instead of asking only whether individual elements meet minimum criteria, the project team asks whether the road as a whole is understandable and proportionate to its function. This is particularly relevant on municipal arterials, peri-urban links, industrial routes and former rural-style roads that now operate under different traffic and land-use conditions. 3.3 Road function, sight distance and vertical profile Sight distance is a recurring issue in the reviewed literature, but its municipal relevance depends strongly on road function. Stopping-sight-distance and vertical-curve studies revisit assumptions about what drivers can see, how they react, and how vertical profile affects available visibility (Megat-Johari et al. 2025; Rinaldi et al. 2021). Some of these studies move towards parameter review or risk-based calibration, which is beyond the scope of this paper. However, they reinforce a practical scoping question: is visibility part of the real road problem? For municipal projects, this question becomes important where the road carries buses, taxis, freight, emergency vehicles or industrial traffic; where the corridor includes underpasses, bridge approaches, crests, sags or constrained vertical profiles; or where night-time visibility and lighting are concerns. A resurfacing project on a low-speed local street and a resurfacing project on a freight route approaching an underpass do not activate the same geometric questions. The proposed screen should therefore begin with road function. If the road is a freight route, public transport route, peri-urban link or constrained corridor, sight distance and vertical profile may need to be checked before the project is treated as routine rehabilitation. The response may still be modest, such as vegetation clearing, signage, lighting, delineation or speed management. In other cases, it may require a formal sight-distance check, local profile adjustment, or a larger capital intervention. 3.4 Operating speed and horizontal-curve consistency Several reviewed papers reinforce that drivers respond to the geometry they experience, not only to design speed or posted speed. Studies on operating speed and horizontal alignment show that curve radius, approach conditions, gradient, vehicle class and tangent-to-curve transitions can influence how drivers adjust speed through a road section (Tottadi & Mehar 2024; Godumala & Ravi Shankar 2024; Atif et al. 2026). These papers are not transferred as local speed-prediction models, but they support the operating-speed lens. The municipal prompt is straightforward: where an existing alignment is being retained, does the likely operating-speed environment remain compatible with the sequence of tangents, curves and grades? This is particularly important where long tangents feed into sharper curves, where curves are sight-restricted, where road function includes freight or mixed traffic, or where a corridor has higher operating speeds than its surrounding municipal context might suggest. The reviewed operating-speed papers also support the need to consider vehicle mix. A curve may be experienced differently by light vehicles,

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buses, trucks, taxis or motorcycles. On mixed-traffic municipal routes, the project team should not assume that a curve is acceptable simply because the existing road has been in use for many years. If the route function has changed, or if heavier vehicles now use the corridor, the same retained geometry may create a different operational problem. 3.5 Curve widening, design vehicle and constrained geometry The reviewed research also points to the need to prioritise horizontal-curve issues rather than treating all curves equally. Work on horizontal-curve safety and applied consistency screening supports the idea that curve sequence, approach conditions, speed environment and local geometry can help identify which locations deserve closer attention (Chakraborty & Gates 2024; Igene & Ogirigbo 2021). In municipal practice, this matters because project budgets may allow only selected improvements. Curve widening and design-vehicle papers add a practical detail to this discussion. Günay (2023) shows that curve widening is not simply a matter of adding pavement width; the way widening is introduced can affect edge definition, vehicle path and curve readability. Ciampa & Olita (2022) similarly reinforce that severe or hairpin-like curves should not be treated as ordinary retained geometry where road function or design vehicle demands more careful review. For municipal scoping, the prompt is whether the retained curve is suitable for the road function and expected users. A tight curve on a residential access street may require a different response from a tight curve on a bus, freight, refuse, emergency or industrial route. Where widening, resurfacing or drainage works are already planned, it may be possible to include targeted curve refinement, swept-path review, shoulder treatment, delineation or local widening without turning the whole project into a major realignment. 3.6 Superelevation, runoff and future local evidence Superelevation, runoff and crossfall appear in the reviewed papers mainly as specialised design-method issues rather than as the core of the municipal checklist. Papers dealing with superelevation runoff and local parameter review show that some design assumptions may need to be revisited when terrain, vehicle fleet, operating conditions or local context differ from the assumptions embedded in guidance (García-Ramírez et al. 2025; Trakakis et al. 2025). These papers are used cautiously in this paper. Their practical value is that they remind municipal teams that resurfacing, widening and drainage works may affect crossfall, superelevation and runoff. A project that changes the surface, edge, shoulder, drainage path or curve widening detail may also change how water drains, how vehicles track and how drivers experience the curve. The screen should therefore ask whether these issues require design input where curve-related works are involved. The same papers also support a future-research point. South African municipal, provincial and national road environments have their own vehicle mixes, operating conditions, design histories and upgrade constraints. International studies can help identify useful questions, but local evidence is needed to refine the answers. This reinforces the position that the present paper is an interim practice translation: it transfers questions into municipal scoping practice while highlighting the need for more South African geometric design research.

4. PROPOSED MUNICIPAL GEOMETRIC SCOPING SCREEN The synthesis above points to a practical need for an early-stage scoping screen. The screen is not intended to replace detailed geometric design, a road safety audit or professional judgement. It is intended to help municipal project teams identify whether a road project that is initially framed as rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, widening, safety or pavement work

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FIGURE 1: Proposed municipal geometric scoping-screen logic may also contain a geometric consistency issue that should be considered before the scope is fixed. The screen should also be distinguished from a road safety audit. The proposed screen is applied before the project brief, budget and delivery route are fixed. Its purpose is to identify whether geometric input, further design assessment or later safety review should be included in the project scope. A road safety audit, where required, remains a separate formal process that reviews the safety implications of a design or existing road at defined stages. The screen should therefore not be used to bypass formal safety review; it should help identify when such review or specialist input may be needed. The screen follows five steps: project trigger, road function and context, corridor-level consistency, element-level prompts and delivery-route decision. The sequence is important. It avoids starting with isolated technical checks before the project team has first considered the function of the road and whether the corridor as a whole presents a consistency, visibility or driver-expectancy concern. 4.1 Step 1: Identify the project trigger The screen is not intended for every minor maintenance activity. It is most useful where a project creates a material opportunity to affect the road environment and one or more activation flags are present. Typical project triggers include rehabilitation, resurfacing, pavement strengthening, stormwater improvements, culvert or bridge works, widening, shoulder works, public transport improvements, freight-route improvements and localised safety interventions. The purpose of this step is to ask a simple question: is the municipality about to spend money on a road while assuming that the retained geometry is acceptable? The trigger is not project value alone; it is the combination of project opportunity and geometric risk indicator. A routine pothole repair would not normally activate the screen. A resurfacing, stormwater, culvert, widening or safety project on a bus route, freight route, peri-urban link, constrained curve or visually confusing corridor probably should. 4.2 Step 2: Identify road function and context The next step is to identify how the road functions and who uses it. This is necessary because the same geometric feature can create different levels of concern depending on the road environment. A tight curve on a low-speed

residential street does not raise the same scoping questions as a similar curve on a bus route, industrial road, freight corridor or peri-urban link. The road-function screen should consider whether the road operates as a freight or industrial route, bus or taxi route, urban arterial, distributor, periurban link, rural-style municipal road, residential access road, pedestrianheavy corridor, constrained underpass or bridge approach, or stormwater/ flood-prone route. These contexts help determine which element-level prompts are relevant. For example, freight and bus routes may activate swept-path, curve widening, sight-distance and vertical-profile prompts, while residential and pedestrian-heavy environments may place greater emphasis on speed management, visibility and vulnerable road users. 4.3 Step 3: Undertake a corridor-level consistency screen Before checking isolated elements, the project team should first consider whether the road corridor reads consistently to drivers. The corridor-level screen should ask whether there are sudden changes in speed environment, unexpected curve sequences, hidden alignment changes, poor visual guidance, constrained sight distance or locations where horizontal and vertical alignment may combine to create driver-perception issues. This step reflects the principle that geometric risk is not always located in one obvious element. A curve may be problematic because of the tangent that precedes it, the vertical profile that masks it, the road function it now serves, the speed environment created by the wider corridor, or the way drivers perceive the road in three dimensions. The corridor-level screen therefore helps the project team decide where more detailed checks should be focused. 4.4 Step 4: Apply element-level prompts where relevant Where the corridor screen identifies potential concern, the project team should apply relevant element-level prompts. These prompts should be selected based on road function, project type and observed risk, not applied mechanically to every road. The purpose of these prompts is not to generate a full design checklist. Their purpose is to prevent relevant geometric questions from being missed at the point where the project scope is still flexible. Some prompts will lead to no further action. Others may lead to a note in the design brief, a small operational intervention, a defined consultant task, or a decision to defer a larger issue to a separate project. Low-cost measures should be used where

TABLE 2: Activation flags for applying the scoping screen Activation flag

Examples

Reason for applying the screen

Road function

Arterial, distributor, freight, bus/taxi, industrial or peri-urban route.

Higher speed, heavier vehicles or a stronger movement function can make retained geometry more significant.

Geometry

Sharp curve, crest, sag, underpass, bridge approach, steep grade or constrained cross-section.

May create sight-distance, operating-speed or driverexpectancy concerns.

Safety / operations history

Run-off-road or pedestrian crashes, guardrail damage, repeated complaints or edge failures.

May indicate that the visible defect is not the whole problem.

User mix

Buses, taxis, trucks, refuse or emergency vehicles, pedestrians or cyclists.

May trigger swept-path, visibility, speed-management or crossing-safety prompts.

Project opportunity

Resurfacing, widening, stormwater, culvert/bridge, shoulder or localised safety works.

Allows targeted improvement before the scope is fixed.

Visual concern

Poor curve readability, hidden alignment change, poor delineation, or vegetation/wall/barrier obstruction.

May indicate that the road does not read clearly to drivers or pedestrians.

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TABLE 3: Municipal geometric scoping prompts Prompt area

Early scoping question

Typical evidence to check

Likely delivery route

Sight distance and vertical profile

Is visibility part of the road problem at crests, sags, underpasses, bridge approaches or constrained profiles?

Survey/long section; field review; photographs; obstructions; night-time or lighting concern; crashes/complaints.

Operations for clearing, signs or lighting; design scope for sightdistance/profile assessment; capital for major correction.

Road function and user mix

Does the road carry buses, taxis, freight, refuse/emergency vehicles, pedestrians or mixed traffic that alters the concern?

Classification; land use; routes; vehicle mix; complaints; operating history.

Internal screen; design scope for design vehicle, tracking, sight distance or speed review.

Tangent-to-curve transition

Does retained geometry demand an unexpected speed reduction or create a driver-expectancy issue?

Curve sequence, radius and tangent length; speed observation; drive-through; crash/complaint history.

Operations for warning, delineation or speed management; design scope for speed/geometry review or local refinement.

Are there curves or curve sequences Horizontal-curve risk that need closer review before the scope and prioritisation is fixed?

Sharp, reverse or compound curves; long tangents; edge/guardrail damage; run-off-road history; sight restrictions.

Mixed / needs triage: operations for low-cost safety; design scope for geometry/sight-distance review; capital for major correction.

Curve widening and swept path

Is the retained curve suitable for the road function and design vehicle?

Design scope for widening or Swept path; lane/shoulder width; radius; tracking review; capital where kerb/edge condition; bus or truck tracking; land, services, structures or major edge failure. widening are affected.

Three-dimensional alignment coordination

Does the road read correctly where horizontal and vertical alignment interact?

Plan/profile overlay; 3D model; drivethrough; photos/video; field inspection; sight-distance review.

Design scope; capital where substantial alignment or profile correction is required.

Superelevation, runoff and crossfall

Could resurfacing, widening, shoulder or drainage changes affect crossfall, runoff, ponding, comfort or curve safety?

Crossfall survey; drainage path; superelevation transition; edge levels; resurfacing thickness; ponding complaints.

Design scope, often linked to pavement or drainage works.

Low-cost safety treatment

Can warning, delineation, markings, vegetation clearing or speed management reasonably address the issue?

Field inspection; signage and markings; vegetation; visibility; crash/complaint history.

Internal operations / maintenance unless the underlying issue requires design input.

they address the identified risk or provide an interim treatment; they should not be used to normalise a known geometric deficiency where the operating risk remains unacceptable. 4.5 Step 5: Decide the delivery route The final step is to classify each flagged issue according to the likely response route. This is the main practical output of the screen. As an illustrative example, consider a resurfacing project on a peri-urban municipal distributor that also serves buses, taxis and occasional freight traffic. The visible project driver may be pavement condition, but the road-function screen identifies a higher-order movement role. A corridorlevel review then notes a long tangent leading into a sharper curve near a crest, with poor delineation and vegetation partly restricting visibility. The element-level prompts would activate checks for tangent-to-curve speed transition, sight distance, curve readability and design-vehicle tracking. The delivery-route decision may then separate the response into operations or

maintenance items such as vegetation clearing, chevrons and road markings; consultant-scope items such as sight-distance and swept-path review; and any major profile correction or realignment as a deferred capital-planning item if it cannot reasonably be accommodated in the resurfacing project. The delivery-route decision is important because it helps prevent two opposite risks. The first risk is scope creep, where every identified issue is added to the current project without regard to budget, mandate or procurement route. The second risk is missed opportunity, where a modest and logical improvement is ignored because it falls outside the initiating department’s immediate project driver. Where a flagged item falls outside the initiating department’s scope, the screen can support a deliberate coordination decision. For example, a stormwater or bridge project may reveal that the preceding curve requires a modest safety or geometric improvement. If identified early, the municipality could decide whether the roads maintenance or road safety unit should cofund the item, whether it should be included in the consultant’s design brief,

TABLE 4: Delivery-route decision matrix Finding from scoping screen

Likely response route

Required output / examples Maintenance instruction or minor works note: signs, chevrons, markings, delineation, vegetation clearing, lighting review or minor speed-management measures.

Can be addressed through routine operational measures.

Internal operations / maintenance

Requires technical assessment or design input but can be incorporated into the current project.

Design brief or drawing mark-up: sight-distance/swept-path checks, curve Consultant design-scope widening detail, crossfall/superelevation review, local profile refinement or 3D item alignment review.

Is significant and cannot reasonably be resolved within the current project scope.

Separate capital intervention

Capital register or future-project note: major realignment, land, retaining structures, service relocation, bridge/culvert widening, profile correction or reconstruction.

Cuts across departments or funding sources.

Mixed / needs triage

Documented coordination decision, e.g. a stormwater project reveals a curvesafety issue, a bridge/culvert upgrade reveals a sight-distance/approach issue, or pavement works identify local widening.

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whether it can be packaged into the same contract, or whether it should be recorded as a future capital intervention. Where procurement rules allow, a defined small work package may also create an opportunity for emerging contractor participation. The intention is not to encourage uncontrolled scope expansion, but to support informed and documented decisions before procurement and construction limit the available options. The proposed screen therefore converts the literature synthesis into a practical municipal workflow. It begins with the project trigger, filters the issue through road function and context, checks the corridor before isolated elements, applies targeted prompts only where relevant, and ends with a delivery-route decision. This keeps the tool proportional to municipal practice while retaining the key lesson from recent geometric design research: road geometry, driver perception, operating speed and safety should not be treated as isolated concerns.

5. DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Using the screen judiciously The proposed screen should be used as an early scoping aid, not as a substitute for detailed geometric design, a road safety audit or professional judgement. Its value is in helping municipal teams ask the right questions before a project brief, budget or tender scope is fixed. In many cases the screen may confirm that no further geometric action is required. In other cases it may identify a small operational intervention, a consultant designscope item or a more substantial issue that should be recorded for a future capital project. The screen is therefore intended to support proportionate decisionmaking. It should not be used to expand every rehabilitation, resurfacing or stormwater project into a geometric redesign. Equally, it should help avoid the opposite problem, where a project proceeds as routine roadworks while a visible geometric, safety or operating-speed concern is left unaddressed. The practical purpose is to define the road problem more completely before deciding what type of intervention is appropriate. The screen also has value where municipal responsibilities are divided between departments or funding streams. A stormwater or bridge project may, for example, reveal that a preceding curve requires modest delineation, widening, visibility improvement or speed-management treatment. If identified early, the municipality can decide whether the issue should be funded by the initiating project, co-funded by a roads maintenance or road safety unit, packaged into the same contract, or recorded as a separate intervention. Where procurement rules allow, defined small work packages may also create opportunities for emerging contractor participation. The intention is not to encourage uncontrolled scope expansion, but to support deliberate and documented decisions before procurement and construction limit the available options. 5.2 Main conclusions Municipal road projects are often initiated in response to visible defects such as pavement failure, drainage problems, localised safety concerns, widening needs or public transport pressure. These are valid project drivers, but they do not always represent the whole road problem. The reviewed research reinforces that road geometry, driver perception, operating speed, sight distance, curve treatment, vehicle tracking and alignment coordination can influence how an existing road operates, even where major realignment is not feasible. The main conclusion of this paper is that municipalities do not need full geometric redesign before every tender, but they do need enough frontend review to know what kind of problem they are procuring a solution for. A conceptual geometric scoping screen can help project teams identify

whether a flagged issue is likely to be an internal operations or maintenance matter, a consultant design-scope item, a separate capital intervention, or a mixed issue requiring departmental coordination. The review also shows that recent international geometric design research should not be transferred directly into South African municipal practice as design thresholds, models or standards. Its more appropriate value is to help formulate practical questions. In this sense, the paper transfers questions, not answers. The proposed screen uses these questions to make selected parts of experienced geometric-design judgement more visible, repeatable and available earlier in municipal project scoping. A further conclusion is that South African road authorities, consultants and universities should contribute more actively to local geometric design research. The absence of South African municipal studies in the focused review is a limitation, but it is also a professional opportunity. More local work is needed on operating speed, design consistency, mixed traffic, sight distance, existing-alignment upgrades and constrained municipal corridors. 5.3 Recommendations It is recommended that municipalities pilot the proposed scoping screen on selected rehabilitation, resurfacing, stormwater, widening and safety projects before tender scope is finalised. The screen should be applied particularly where municipal roads operate as arterials, peri-urban links, freight or industrial routes, bus or taxi corridors, constrained underpass or bridge approaches, steep routes, or roads with meaningful speed transitions. The screen should be used to record a simple delivery-route decision for each flagged issue. The decision should indicate whether the issue can be addressed through internal operations or maintenance, should be included in the consultant’s design scope, requires a separate capital intervention, or needs cross-departmental triage. This record can help distinguish justified scope additions from uncontrolled scope creep. Municipalities and consultants should also use the screen to support multidisciplinary scoping discussions. Pavement, stormwater, structures, road safety, traffic, transport planning and asset-management teams may each see different parts of the road problem. A shared scoping screen can help these teams identify where specialist geometric input is required before briefs and budgets are fixed. Finally, the proposed screen should be refined through practice. It should be tested on real municipal corridors, compared with project outcomes and updated as South African evidence develops. Future research should examine operating-speed behaviour, geometric consistency, curve safety, sightdistance constraints, heavy-vehicle movement and retrofit opportunities on South African municipal and provincial road networks.

REFERENCES AGSA 2025. Consolidated general report on local government audit outcomes: MFMA 2023-24. Auditor-General of South Africa, Pretoria. Atif M, Sil G & Hassan Y 2026. Speed Reduction Model for Assessing Geometric Consistency of Two-Lane Highway in Central India. Transportation Research Record. https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981251394972 Chakraborty M & Gates TJ 2024. Relationship between Horizontal Curve Geometry and Single-Vehicle Crash Occurrence on Rural Secondary Highways. Transportation Research Record 2678(7): 642-655. https:// doi.org/10.1177/03611981231208901 Ciampa D & Olita S 2022. Mountain Roads’ Geometric Design: Methodological Proposal for Hairpin Bend Design/Retrofitting. Infrastructures 7(9): 112. https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures7090112 COGTA 2025. 25 Year Review of Local Government. Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Pretoria.

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de Santos-Berbel C & Zimmermann M 2025. Safety Implications of ThreeDimensional Alignment Coordination in Highway Design: Sight Distance, Visual Perception, Design Methodologies, and Future Challenges. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems 151(9): 03125003. https:// doi.org/10.1061/JTEPBS.TEENG-8852 García-Ramírez Y, Belduma T & Guerrero A 2025. Updating Geometric Design Parameters in Ecuador: A Data-Driven Methodology for Contextualizing Vehicle Dimensions and Driver Eye Height. Applied Sciences 15(17): 9273. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15179273 Godumala DT & Ravi Shankar KVR 2024. Geometric Design Consistency Model for Evaluating Safety at Horizontal Curves on Two-Lane Rural Highways Under Mixed Traffic Conditions. Journal of the Institution of Engineers (India): Series A 105(2): 307-316. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40030-02400794-5 Günay B 2023. Design Issues in Widening of Unspiraled Horizontal Curves. Transportation Research Record 2677(11): 124-134. https://doi. org/10.1177/03611981231164389 Igene MO & Ogirigbo OR 2021. Evaluating the Geometric Design Consistency and Road Safety on Two-lane Single Carriageways Using Operating Speed Criteria. NIPES - Journal of Science and Technology Research 3(1): 90-98. https://doi.org/10.37933/nipes/3.1.2021.10 Megat-Johari M-U, Gupta N, Mahmud MS, Bamney A, Jashami H, Savolainen P & Gates TJ 2025. Revisiting the Design Parameters Related to Stopping Sight Distance and Vertical Curve Length using Probabilistic Analyses. Transportation Research Record 2679(10): 703-713. https://doi. org/10.1177/03611981251342786 Rinaldi A, de Santos-Berbel C, Bella F & Castro M 2021. Risk-Based Calibration of Road Sag Vertical Curve Design Guidelines on Undivided Highways. Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems 147(10): 04021055. https://doi.org/10.1061/JTEPBS.0000572 RTMC 2024. State of Road Safety Report: July to September 2024. Road Traffic Management Corporation, Pretoria. Sharma VK, Sil G & Atif M 2026. Highway Geometric Design Consistency: A Systematic Review of Evaluation Tools and Recommendations. Transportation in Developing Economies 12(1): 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s40890-026-00256-6 Tottadi KK & Mehar A 2024. Influence of Horizontal Alignment Elements on Operating Speed of Vehicles on Two-Lane Highways. Frontiers in Future Transportation 5: 1260051. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffutr.2024.1260051 Trakakis AE, Matragos V, Apostoleris K, Amiridis K, Mavromatis S, Stamatiadis N & Psarianos B 2025. Enhancing the Superelevation Runoff Method in Circular Arcs for Mountainous Terrain Alignments. Infrastructures 10(12): 319. https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures10120319

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PAPER 10

RENAVIGATING THE WATER SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL: IMPLICATIONS, RISKS AND STRATEGIC RESPONSES Mike Greatwood Pr Eng FIMESA, Msunduzi Municipality

ABSTRACT South Africa’s water services sector is undergoing its most farreaching transformation since 1997, driven by the Water Services Amendment Bill, revised national Norms and Standards, and the reform momentum generated under Operation Vulindlela. These reforms seek to address deteriorating municipal performance, widespread noncompliance with water quality standards, and systemic service failures. However, they unfold within a context of profound structural constraints, including ageing infrastructure, severe skills shortages, weak revenue systems, and the fiscal limitations imposed by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). This paper provides a rigorous analysis of the implications, risks, and strategic considerations arising from the Amendment Bill, arguing that the current reform trajectory could deepen rather than resolve the sector’s crisis if not aligned with municipal realities. The paper begins by examining constitutional mandates, particularly the tension between municipalities’ obligation to ensure access to safe and reliable water services and the MFMA’s requirement that they operate strictly within affordability constraints. It demonstrates how legislative instruments, such as the Water Services Act, the National Water Act, Municipal Systems Act, and newly introduced technical and tariff Norms and Standards, intersect to create obligations that many municipalities are structurally incapable of meeting. The introduction of mandatory licensing for Water Services Providers (WSPs) represents a major architectural shift, centralising regulatory power at the national level and raising constitutional, financial, and organisational implications for Water Services Authorities (WSAs). Using Msunduzi Municipality as a representative case study, the paper illustrates how national reforms collide with local capacity constraints, highlighting challenges arising from the WSA/WSP split, professionalisation requirements, and tariff affordability. It analyses emerging risks, particularly those related to licensing, labour dynamics, organisational restructuring, and service continuity. The paper concludes that meaningful reform requires alignment between legislative ambition and municipal capacity. Without fiscal recalibration, institutional strengthening, and coherent cross-government coordination, the Amendment Bill may formalise contradictions that will perpetuate the sector’s cycle of non-compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels. NAVIGATING THE LEGISLATION To understand the implications of the Amendment Bill, it is necessary to begin with the constitutional and legislative architecture that defines the water services system. The Constitution establishes water as a fundamental right and assigns municipalities executive authority over water and sanitation services. This authority is not delegated; it is inherent. Municipalities are not implementers of national policy, rather they are autonomous spheres of government with their own legislative and executive powers. Any

regulatory framework, including the Amendment Bill, must therefore operate within the boundaries of municipal autonomy. The legislative instruments that govern water services have evolved inconsistently. The Water Services Act, the National Water Act, the Municipal Systems Act, the MFMA, and the new Norms and Standards each impose obligations that, when read together, create contradictions that no municipality can resolve on its own. The Amendment Bill attempts to address some of these contradictions, but in several areas, it merely formalises them. The Bill strengthens national oversight, yet the Constitution protects municipal autonomy. The Bill introduces enforceable performance conditions, yet municipalities lack the capacity to meet them. These contradictions are not theoretical. They shape the daily realities of WSAs, influence budget decisions, determine tariff trajectories, and define the limits of compliance. They also pose legal and operational risks that must be clearly understood if municipalities are to navigate the transition effectively. Msunduzi Municipality is a representative case study of the challenges facing WSAs nationwide. Msunduzi’s experience mirrors national patterns: ageing infrastructure, high non‑revenue water, insufficient maintenance budgets, technical vacancies, weak revenue systems, and increasing regulatory obligations. These challenges are not unique to Msunduzi; they are systemic across South Africa’s 144 WSAs. The contradictions in the legislative framework, the pressures of Operation Vulindlela, and the demands of the Amendment Bill converge in municipalities like Msunduzi, making it ideal for understanding the national transformation underway. The constitutional and legislative foundations of the water sector, the evolution of the WSA/WSP model, the drivers of reform under Operation Vulindlela, and the systemic contradictions that undermine service delivery must be examined. The Water Services Amendment Bill will require evaluation in terms of the implications of mandatory licensing, the professionalisation requirements imposed by the new Norms and Standards, and the financial constraints created by the MFMA. By outlining the institutional and financial reforms necessary to restore stability, accountability, and public trust in South Africa’s water supply services, the sector must confront the structural misalignment between regulatory ambition and municipal reality. The Amendment Bill will not deliver the transformation it promises. Instead, it risks entrenching a cycle of non‑compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATE AND THE STRUCTURAL TENSIONS AT THE HEART OF THE WATER SERVICES SYSTEM The Constitution is unambiguous in its allocation of authority, its assignment of responsibility, and its articulation of rights. Yet the legislative and regulatory instruments that have evolved around it have created a system that is internally contradictory, structurally misaligned, and increasingly unworkable for municipalities. Section 27 of the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to access sufficient water, which is neither aspirational nor contingent on municipal affordability. It is a binding obligation on the state, and because

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municipalities are the primary providers of water services, they bear the brunt of constitutional accountability. The Constitution requires the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the “progressive realisation” of this right. In practice, this means that municipalities must ensure water services that are safe, reliable, sustainable, and financially viable. Section 24 guarantees an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being. Water quality failures, pollution, and inadequate sanitation are therefore not merely service delivery shortcomings; they are constitutional violations. When a municipality fails to provide safe drinking water or allows wastewater to contaminate rivers, it is not simply failing to meet technical standards; it is breaching the Bill of Rights. Section 156 assigns municipalities executive authority over potable water supply systems. This authority is inherent, not delegated. Municipalities are not administrative extensions of National Departments; they are autonomous spheres of government with their own legislative and executive powers. Section 160 further entrenches this autonomy by reserving key decisions exclusively for municipal councils, including the passing of bylaws, the approval of budgets, and the imposition of tariffs, rates, and levies. Therefore, there is a delicate balance between rights, responsibilities, and autonomy. Municipalities must deliver essential services and are authorised to determine how those services are structured, funded, and managed. The National Government must regulate the sector without encroaching on municipal autonomy. When this balance is respected, the system functions. When it is not, the system becomes unstable. Unfortunately, the legislative and regulatory framework that has evolved over the past three decades has increasingly disrupted this balance. The Water Services Act, the National Water Act, the Municipal Systems Act, the MFMA, and the new Norms and Standards each impose obligations that, when read together, create contradictions that no municipality can resolve on its own. These contradictions are not minor technical inconsistencies; they are structural tensions that fundamentally undermine WSAs’ ability to comply with the law. The first and most significant contradiction lies between the Constitution’s guarantee of the right to water and the MFMA’s strict fiscal discipline. The Constitution requires municipalities to ensure universal access to safe, reliable water services. The MFMA, however, prohibits municipalities from adopting budgets that are not “affordable” or from incurring expenditures that exceed available resources. This creates a situation in which municipalities are legally required to achieve outcomes they are legally prohibited from funding. The Amendment Bill intensifies this contradiction by imposing licensing conditions, performance requirements, and enforcement mechanisms that will require significant investment in staffing, infrastructure, monitoring, and compliance, all of which are constrained by the MFMA. The second central contradiction lies between the Municipal Systems Act and the new Norms and Standards for tariffs. Section 74 of the MSA empowers municipalities to design their own tariff policies, provided that they reflect equity, efficiency, cost recovery, and affordability. This autonomy is central to local government’s constitutional status. Yet the 2024 Norms and Standards impose prescriptive tariff structures, affordability thresholds, and cross-subsidisation rules that effectively remove municipal discretion. The question becomes unavoidable: who has the final authority over tariffs, the Council, as required by the Constitution and the MFMA, or the national regulator, as implied by the Norms and Standards? The third contradiction lies between the Water Services Act and Municipal capacity. The Act mandates universal access, minimum service standards,

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water quality compliance, infrastructure planning, and regulatory oversight of WSPs. Yet many WSAs lack the technical skills, financial resources, institutional structure, or operational capacity to meet these obligations. The Amendment Bill attempts to address this by introducing licensing, but licensing does not create capacity; it merely enforces compliance. When compliance is structurally unaffordable or institutionally impossible, enforcement becomes punitive rather than corrective. The fourth contradiction lies between the National Water Act and the Water Services Act. The NWA governs water resources, including abstraction, allocation, and licensing. The WSA governs service delivery. Yet the two Acts intersect in areas such as bulk supply, water‑use licensing, and the role of Water Boards. The Amendment Bill attempts to clarify these intersections, but in several regions it introduces new ambiguities that could lead to regulatory gridlock. These contradictions create a system in which municipalities are held accountable for outcomes they cannot achieve within the constraints of their fiscal and institutional environment. They also create legal uncertainty, operational risk, and governance instability. The Amendment Bill attempts to address some of these issues, but in several areas, it formalises contradictions that were previously informal or implicit. For example, by requiring all WSPs to be licensed, the Bill effectively places municipal service delivery under national control, raising constitutional questions about the limits of national oversight. Msunduzi Municipality provides a clear illustration of these tensions. As a designated WSA, Msunduzi is responsible for ensuring access to water services, planning for future needs, regulating WSPs, and ensuring compliance with national standards. Yet it faces ageing infrastructure, high non‑revenue water, insufficient maintenance budgets, technical vacancies, tariff affordability constraints, and increasing regulatory obligations. These challenges are not unique to Msunduzi; they are systemic across South Africa’s 144 WSAs. The contradictions in the legislative framework, the pressures of Operation Vulindlela, and the demands of the Amendment Bill all converge in municipalities like Msunduzi, making it an ideal case study for understanding the national transformation underway.

The constitutional mandate is clear, but the legislative and regulatory environment has become increasingly misaligned with municipal reality. The Amendment Bill does not resolve these contradictions; in several areas, it intensifies them. Unless these structural tensions are addressed directly, the sector will remain trapped in a cycle of non‑compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels.

THE EVOLUTION OF SOUTH AFRICA’S WATER SERVICES FRAMEWORK: HOW THREE DECADES OF REFORM PRODUCED A FRAGMENTED, OVERBURDENED SYSTEM The Water Services Framework we have today is not the product of a single policy choice or legislative instrument. It is the cumulative result of overlapping reforms, shifting political priorities, institutional experimentation, and repeated attempts to correct structural weaknesses without addressing their root causes. The result is a framework that is increasingly complex, internally contradictory, and operationally unsustainable for most municipalities. The post‑1994 period began with an urgent and morally necessary imperative: to extend water services to millions of households who had

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been deliberately excluded under apartheid. The national government played a central role in funding and implementing infrastructure projects, while local government structures were still being consolidated. The Water Services Act of 1997 was designed to support this expansion by establishing Water Services Authorities (WSAs) as the accountable institutions for service delivery, defining minimum standards, enabling municipalities to choose between internal and external service providers, and promoting cost recovery as a foundation for their sustainability. At the time, the assumption was that municipalities would gradually build the technical, financial, and managerial capacity required to fulfil this mandate. In practice, capacity grew unevenly, and many municipalities inherited infrastructure backlogs, institutional weaknesses, and fragmented administrative systems that persist to this day. The early years of the democratic era were characterised by rapid infrastructure rollout but insufficient attention to long‑term sustainability, asset management, and institutional capability. Infrastructure was built faster than municipalities could develop the systems and skills needed to operate and maintain it. A central feature of the 1997 Act was the conceptual separation between the Water Services Authority (WSA) and the Water Services Provider (WSP). The WSA was intended to be the regulator, planner, and custodian of water services, while the WSP was designed to be the operator responsible for day‑to‑day service delivery. However, in South Africa, the vast majority of municipalities adopted internal WSPs, meaning the same institution both regulates and operates the service. This internalisation was driven by limited private sector interest in municipal water operations, political concerns about outsourcing essential services, labour resistance to externalisation, and the absence of a national licensing framework for WSPs. As a result, the WSA/WSP split remained largely theoretical. Municipalities continued to operate water services through internal departments, often without the specialised skills or governance structures required for either role. The Amendment Bill now attempts to enforce a separation that was never implemented in practice, creating significant organisational and political challenges. The early 2000s saw a shift toward decentralisation and municipal autonomy, driven by the Municipal Systems Act (2000) and the Municipal Finance Management Act (2003). These Acts were designed to strengthen local accountability, promote financial sustainability, and ensure transparent governance. They entrenched municipal authority over service delivery, budgeting, and tariff setting. However, they also placed significant responsibilities on municipalities without always providing the resources or capacity required to fulfil them. The assumption that municipalities could self‑regulate and self‑fund water services has proven unrealistic in many contexts, particularly in rural and financially distressed municipalities. By the mid‑2010s, several systemic stressors had become evident. Ageing infrastructure, insufficient maintenance budgets, high levels of non‑revenue water, declining revenue collection, technical vacancies, rising energy and chemical costs, and weak asset management systems all contributed to a decline in performance. These pressures eroded WSAs’ operational capability and exposed the fragility of the internal WSP model. The Blue Drop and Green Drop assessments of 2022 and 2023 confirmed widespread non‑compliance, with more than 100 WSAs classified as high‑risk or dysfunctional. Operation Vulindlela (OV), launched in 2020, marked a turning point. It recognised that the water sector’s challenges were not isolated municipal failures but systemic issues requiring national intervention. OV accelerated reforms in water‑use licensing, infrastructure delivery, asset management, revenue systems, and regulatory enforcement. While OV improved coordination and highlighted critical bottlenecks, it also exposed

the extent to which municipalities lacked the capacity to meet existing obligations, let alone new ones. OV’s work laid the groundwork for the Amendment Bill, which seeks to formalise and enforce many of the reforms initiated under OV. Between 2024 and 2026, the regulatory landscape dramatically shifted. Tariff Norms and Standards introduced prescriptive tariff structures and affordability rules. Technical Norms and Standards imposed detailed requirements for water quality, staffing, monitoring, and infrastructure. The Amendment Bill introduced mandatory licensing for all WSPs and expanded national oversight. These reforms aim to improve accountability and service quality, but they also increase compliance costs and administrative burdens, particularly for municipalities already struggling with basic operations. The cumulative effect of these reforms is a system characterised by overlapping mandates, contradictory obligations, unfunded mandates, capacity gaps, weak separation between WSA and WSP roles, and fragmented accountability across spheres of government. The Amendment Bill attempts to address some of these issues. Still, it also formalises several contradictions and introduces new tensions, particularly around licensing, tariff setting, and the balance of authority between local and national government. Msunduzi’s experience reflects the national trajectory.  It inherited an ageing infrastructure and uneven capacity. It operates with an internal WSP model. The WSA function, although separate from the internal WSP, is incorrectly placed within the organisational structure.  It faces affordability constraints that limit the ability to implement cost‑reflective tariffs.  It must comply with increasingly prescriptive national standards.  It is expected to license its internal WSP despite systemic constraints. Msunduzi is not an outlier but a microcosm of the structural pressures facing WSAs across South Africa. The evolution of the water services framework has produced a system that is overburdened, under‑resourced, and structurally misaligned. The Amendment Bill does not emerge in a vacuum; it appears in a context where municipalities are already struggling to meet basic obligations. Unless the Bill is implemented with a clear understanding of this historical trajectory, it risks reinforcing the very failures it seeks to correct.

OPERATION VULINDLELA AND THE REFORM DRIVERS RESHAPING THE WATER SERVICES LANDSCAPE Operation Vulindlela (OV) has become one of the most potent forces reshaping South Africa’s water services sector, not because it introduced new legislation, but because it exposed the structural weaknesses that legislation alone cannot fix. OV was conceived as a cross‑government initiative to unlock structural reforms that individual departments had been unable to implement. In the water sector, however, OV did far more than accelerate administrative processes; it fundamentally altered the expectations placed on Water Services Authorities (WSAs), intensified regulatory scrutiny, and laid the groundwork for the Water Services Amendment Bill. To understand the pressures now confronting municipalities such as Msunduzi, it is essential to comprehend OV’s role as both a catalyst and a disruptor. OV did not create the sector’s crisis; it revealed it. It did not create new obligations; it forced the national government to acknowledge that existing obligations were not being met. And it did not design the

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Amendment Bill; it created the political and administrative momentum that made the Bill possible. OV was launched in 2020 as a joint initiative of the Presidency and National Treasury, at a time when South Africa’s economic stagnation, infrastructure failures, and declining investor confidence had reached critical levels. Water security was identified early as one of the five priority reform areas, not because of ideological preference, but because water is foundational to economic stability, public health, and social cohesion. Phase I of OV focused on streamlining water‑use licensing and unblocking major infrastructure projects. The approval period for Water‑Use License Applications (WULAs) was reduced through digitisation, standardisation, and improved coordination between DWS, Catchment Management Agencies, and other regulators. This reform signalled a shift toward more assertive national oversight of water‑related processes. OV’s intervention in bulk water infrastructure highlighted the extent to which municipal performance is dependent on upstream systems beyond their control. When national projects stall, municipal service delivery collapses, which is a reality that the Amendment Bill does not fully address. Phase II of OV thus shifted focus to municipal performance, recognising that national reforms could not succeed without functional WSAs. OV emphasised infrastructure maintenance, asset management, revenue systems, and regulatory enforcement. It encouraged municipalities to adopt standardised asset management systems, improve reporting on infrastructure condition, and adhere to the 8% maintenance budgeting norm. It also highlighted the chronic underfunding of maintenance in municipal budgets, a structural problem exacerbated by the MFMA, which prioritises short‑term affordability over long‑term sustainability. OV’s focus on revenue management was equally significant. It recognised that water services cannot be financially sustainable without accurate metering, credible billing, effective credit control, and reduced non‑revenue water. But many municipalities lack the revenue base needed to fund cost‑reflective water services, regardless of how efficient their billing systems become. This is a structural problem that no amount of administrative reform can solve. OV also supported the implementation of the national professionalisation framework, recognising that chronic skills shortages, high vacancy rates, and inconsistent competency levels were undermining service delivery. The revised Norms and Standards now embed these professionalisation requirements, but do not provide the funding or institutional support required to meet them. OV’s work to strengthen regulatory enforcement, including improvements to the Blue Drop, Green Drop, and No Drop systems, further intensified pressure on municipalities by exposing widespread non‑compliance. The Amendment Bill’s licensing regime is a direct response to these findings. OV did not create the sector’s crisis; it revealed it. It created the political momentum that made the Bill possible. OV’s reforms were necessary, but they also intensified the gap between regulatory expectations and municipal capacity. They accelerated the shift toward a more regulated, compliance‑driven water sector, but they did so without addressing the structural contradictions that make compliance impossible for many WSAs. The Amendment Bill is the legislative embodiment of OV’s reform agenda. It sought to strengthen accountability, formalise oversight mechanisms, introduce licensing to enforce performance, clarify institutional roles, and improve service quality. However, because OV exposed the fragility of municipal systems, the Bill now faces an environment in which many WSAs lack the capacity, funding, or institutional structures to comply with its requirements.

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The Bill assumes that municipalities can restructure their organograms, professionalise their staff, upgrade their infrastructure, and implement sophisticated performance management systems, yet all within the constraints of the MFMA and without additional funding. It aims to increase accountability, formalise oversight, implement performance-based licensing, define institutional roles, and enhance service quality.

Msunduzi’s position within the OV landscape reflects the national pattern. It faces high non‑revenue water, ageing infrastructure, insufficient maintenance budgets, technical vacancies, weak revenue systems, and increasing regulatory obligations. OV’s reforms highlight these weaknesses and underscore the urgency of addressing them, but they also expose the structural contradictions that complicate compliance. Msunduzi is not an exception; it is a representative example of the systemic pressures facing WSAs across South Africa. Operation Vulindlela has intensified the contradictions that the Amendment Bill now seeks to regulate. Unless these contradictions are addressed directly, the Bill will not achieve its intended outcomes. Instead, it risks deepening the cycle of non‑compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels.

THE WATER SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL: PURPOSE, ARCHITECTURE, CONTRADICTIONS AND RISKS The Water Services Amendment Bill is designed to address several longstanding challenges: widespread non‑compliance with water quality and service standards; weak enforcement under the original Water Services Act; ambiguous institutional roles among WSAs, WSPs, and Water Boards; a lack of separation between regulatory and operational functions; inadequate performance management of internal WSPs; fragmented oversight across spheres of government; and declining public trust in water services. These challenges are real, and the need for reform is undeniable. However, the Bill’s approach to reform assumes without evidence that municipalities have the institutional maturity, technical competence, and financial resilience to comply with its provisions. At the heart of the Bill is the introduction of mandatory licensing for all Water Services Providers (WSPs), including internal municipal units. For the first time, municipalities will no longer have inherent authority to operate water services; they must obtain permission from a National Regulator. The Bill establishes a Licensing Authority within the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) to issue licences, monitor compliance, enforce conditions, and suspend or revoke licences. This centralised authority marks a significant expansion of national regulatory power. It raises constitutional questions about the limits of national oversight in a system where municipalities have constitutionally protected executive authority. The Bill’s licensing system aims to set minimum standards, confirm necessary capacity and competence, and provide a way to intervene if performance falls short. However, there is uncertainty for WSAs, especially those with internal WSPs that may lack sufficient staff, systems, or financial resources to meet expected licensing requirements. The absence of clear criteria also creates the risk of inconsistent or politically influenced licensing decisions. The Bill introduces expanded enforcement powers, including penalties for non‑compliance, personal liability for Accounting Officers and Directors, mandatory reporting obligations, and the power to intervene when WSAs fail to act. These measures strengthen accountability but may also expose

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municipalities to legal and administrative risks. For example, if a WSP license is suspended or revoked, the WSA remains responsible for maintaining service continuity. This creates a situation in which municipalities may be held accountable for failures that arise from licensing decisions beyond their control. The Bill reinforces the WSA’s role as the regulator and custodian of water services, responsible for planning, tariff policy, compliance, performance management, and oversight. This aligns with the Constitution but increases the administrative burden on municipalities. The Bill requires WSAs to enter into formal Performance Management Agreements (PMAs) with WSPs that specify Key Performance Areas (KPAs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and measurable performance targets. Performance management is no longer optional; it is a licensing requirement. Yet many WSAs lack the capacity to develop, implement, and monitor sophisticated performance management systems. The Bill introduces licensing conditions that require significant investment in staffing, infrastructure, and monitoring, but the MFMA restricts expenditure to what is affordable. The Bill requires WSAs to enforce performance conditions on WSPs, but many internal WSPs lack the capacity to meet these conditions. The Bill requires WSAs to ensure continuity of service even if a WSP license is suspended. Still, it does not provide mechanisms for securing alternative service providers in municipalities where external WSPs are unwilling or unable to operate. The Bill’s licensing regime creates several new contradictions. Licensing may require increased staffing, infrastructure upgrades, enhanced monitoring, or improved performance systems, but the MFMA restricts expenditure to what is affordable. If a municipality cannot fund the requirements of its license, it risks non‑compliance and potential suspension. Licensing requires a distinct WSP entity, a formal contract, performance management systems, and precise separation of duties, but most municipalities have not separated their WSA and WSP functions. Licensing requires compliance with technical Norms and Standards, but many WSAs currently fail Blue Drop and Green Drop audits. Licensing requires financial viability, but many municipalities lack the necessary revenue base to fund cost‑reflective water services. The Bill’s enforcement mechanisms may also conflict with labour legislation, particularly if license suspension requires transferring staff to an external WSP. The Bill’s strengths lie in its attempt to introduce enforceable accountability, strengthen national oversight, clarify institutional roles, formalise performance management, and align with Operation Vulindlela’s reform agenda. These are necessary reforms in a sector facing systemic collapse. The Bill’s weaknesses stem from its lack of clarity on licensing criteria, insufficient alignment with the MFMA, unresolved constitutional tensions, limited national capacity to implement licensing, and the risk of unintended consequences. For Msunduzi, the Bill will require significant organisational restructuring, including the reporting structures within WSA and WSP functions, the appointment of a qualified WSA Manager, the licensing of the internal WSP, the development of new performance management systems, enhanced planning and reporting, compliance with technical Norms and Standards, and alignment with tariff Norms and Standards. These requirements will stretch existing capacity and may require significant budget adjustments, Council approval, and union engagement.

The Water Services Amendment Bill strengthens regulation, but it does not redesign the system architecture. It improves enforcement, but it does not resolve the contradictions between the MFMA and water sector legislation, the affordability gap, the capacity deficit, or the institutional fragmentation. Unless the structural tensions embedded in the legislative framework are addressed directly, the Bill risks entrenching a cycle of non‑compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels.

PROFESSIONALISATION, MFMA CONSTRAINTS, IMPLEMENTATION RISKS AND THE STRATEGIC WAY FORWARD The transformation of South Africa’s water services sector cannot be understood without examining the profound implications of the revised Norms and Standards, the professionalisation agenda, the constraints imposed by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), and the contractual risks introduced by the Water Services Amendment Bill. These elements form the operational backbone of the new regulatory environment, yet they also expose the structural weaknesses that threaten to undermine the entire reform effort. Unless these issues are directly addressed, the sector will remain trapped in a cycle of non-compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels, no matter how sophisticated the regulatory framework becomes. Professionalisation is a necessary reform, yet it rests on unrealistic assumptions. The revised Compulsory National Water and Sanitation Services Standards introduce the most far‑reaching professionalisation requirements the municipal water sector has ever seen. They require WSAs and WSPs to employ qualified, professionally registered personnel in key positions, to maintain minimum staffing levels, and to implement structured human resource plans aligned with national competency frameworks. The WSA Manager must be a professionally registered engineer or technologist with at least fifteen years of experience. Technical and operational staff must meet minimum qualification levels, professional registration requirements, and ongoing competency development obligations. Whilst these requirements are necessary, the sector’s collapse is rooted in chronic skills shortages, high vacancy rates, inconsistent competency levels, and the erosion of technical expertise across municipalities. Professionalisation is essential to improve service quality, restore public trust, ensure compliance with licensing requirements, and strengthen regulatory oversight. However, the professionalisation agenda is built on an assumption that municipalities have the financial resources, organisational flexibility, and labour stability required to implement it. This assumption is not supported by evidence. Many municipalities lack the budget to recruit qualified engineers, technicians, and process controllers. Salary disparities between municipalities, Water Boards, and the private sector make recruitment and retention extremely difficult. Labour resistance to restructuring, regrading, and competency enforcement is widespread. Training and development programmes are inconsistent, underfunded, or absent. Professionalisation without funding is an unfunded mandate. Professionalisation without organisational restructuring is impossible. Professionalisation without labour alignment is unimplementable. The Amendment Bill and the Norms and Standards impose professionalisation requirements without providing the financial or institutional support required to meet them. This creates a situation in which municipalities are legally required to comply with standards they cannot afford to implement. MFMA CONSTRAINTS: THE STRUCTURAL BARRIER TO COMPLIANCE The MFMA is the single most significant constraint on municipal performance in the water sector. It governs budgeting, revenue management, procurement, financial reporting, and expenditure. It requires

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municipalities to adopt credible budgets for fiscal stability, base revenue projections on realistic assumptions, avoid unfunded mandates, maintain cash‑backed reserves, and ensure expenditures do not exceed available resources. The Constitution requires municipalities to ensure universal access to safe, reliable water services. The Water Services Act and the Amendment Bill require compliance with technical standards, performance conditions, and licensing requirements. The Norms and Standards require professionalisation, infrastructure upgrades, monitoring systems, and enhanced reporting. This creates a fundamental contradiction that municipalities are legally required to achieve outcomes they are legally prohibited from funding. The Amendment Bill intensifies this contradiction by imposing licensing conditions that require significant investment in staffing, infrastructure, and monitoring. If a municipality cannot fund the requirements of its license, it risks non‑compliance and potential suspension. The MFMA does not allow municipalities to budget for compliance if compliance is unaffordable. The MFMA also creates operational constraints that undermine service delivery. Procurement delays hinder infrastructure maintenance and emergency repairs. Revenue collection challenges undermine financial sustainability. Tariff affordability constraints limit cost‑reflective pricing. The National Treasury’s imposition of affordable budgets restricts expenditure on maintenance, staffing, and compliance. These constraints are not the result of municipal inefficiency; they are structural features of the fiscal framework.

institutional capacity, predictable regulation, and a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of WSAs and WSPs. Without this alignment, the sector will remain trapped in a cycle of non‑compliance, fiscal distress, and declining service levels. The National Government must confront the structural contradictions embedded in the legislative framework. The MFMA must be aligned with the Constitution and the Water Services Act to ensure that municipalities can fund the obligations imposed by the Amendment Bill. The Norms and Standards must be accompanied by funding, training, and institutional support. The licensing regime must be implemented in a manner that recognises municipalities’ capacity constraints. Municipalities must restructure their WSA and WSP functions, professionalise their staff, strengthen their planning and regulatory capacity, improve water-quality compliance, and enhance their revenue systems. They must adopt credible budgets, implement performance management systems, and incorporate risk protections into WSP agreements. They must engage unions, secure political support, and manage organisational change carefully. The sector must move toward a model that prioritises sustainability, accountability, and public trust. This requires a shift from reactive crisis management to proactive institutional strengthening. It requires investment in infrastructure, skills, and systems. It requires coordination across spheres of government, alignment of legislative frameworks, and a shared commitment to restoring the integrity of South Africa’s water services.

IMPLEMENTATION RISKS: THE TRANSITION WILL BE TURBULENT Municipalities face significant organisational, financial, operational, and political risks. They must restructure their WSA and WSP functions, fill critical technical posts, conduct Section 77 and 78 reviews, prepare for licensing assessments, and implement new performance management systems, all within the set timelines and under severe fiscal pressure. Organisational risks include restructuring organograms, regrading staff posts, and realigning reporting lines. Labour resistance is likely, particularly from unions concerned about job security, post-reclassifications, and competency enforcement. Recruitment challenges will be significant due to the national shortage of qualified engineers, technicians, and process controllers. Budget constraints will limit the ability to fund new posts with competitive salaries, training programmes, and infrastructure upgrades. Operational risks include the potential for service disruptions, waterquality failures, and infrastructure failures during the transition. Licensing risks include the possibility that internal WSPs may fail to obtain or retain licenses, requiring WSAs to secure external WSPs in an environment where private-sector interest is limited. Political risks include reluctance to approve cost‑reflective tariffs, interference in operational decisions, and resistance to organisational restructuring. Service continuity is the most critical risk. If a WSP license is suspended or revoked, the WSA remains responsible for ensuring service delivery. The Bill does not provide mechanisms for securing alternative service providers in municipalities where external WSPs are unwilling or unable to operate. This creates the potential for service collapse in municipalities that fail licensing assessments.

REFERENCES Legislation Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Water Services Act 108 of 1997. National Water Act 36 of 1998. Local Government: Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000. Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003.

THE STRATEGIC WAY FORWARD: CONFRONTING STRUCTURAL REALITIES The transformation of the water sector requires alignment between the MFMA and water sector legislation, realistic funding models, strengthened

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Bills Water Services Amendment Bill, 2023. Water Services Amendment Bill, 2024 (Draft). Regulations, Norms and Standards Department of Water and Sanitation. 2023. Norms and Standards for Water Services. Government Notice R509, Government Gazette 48721, 12 June 2023. Department of Water and Sanitation. 2023. Draft Water Services Provider Licensing Regulations. Government Gazette 49012, 3 October 2023. National Reform and Sector Reports National Treasury & The Presidency. 2023. Operation Vulindlela Progress Update. Pretoria: NT. Department of Water and Sanitation & Water Research Commission. 2022. Section 78 Review Study: Final Report. Pretoria: DWS/WRC. Department of Water and Sanitation. 2022. Blue Drop Progress Report. Department of Water and Sanitation. 2022. Green Drop Progress Report. Department of Water and Sanitation. 2022. No Drop Report.

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PAPER 11

THE KNOWLEDGEABLE CLIENT: ORGANISATIONAL PROFESSIONALISATION AS A STRATEGIC ENABLER OF MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE DELIVERY, PUBLIC SAFETY AND TECHNICAL GOVERNANCE

Gerhard Vivier Pr Eng, Eyal Hermelin Pr Eng City of Cape Town

ABSTRACT South African municipalities are responsible for the planning, delivery, operation and maintenance of infrastructure assets that are essential to economic development, public health and service delivery. However, many municipalities face increasing challenges related to ageing infrastructure, growing service demands, skills shortages, consultant dependency and declining numbers of professionally registered built environment practitioners. The publication of Identification of Work (IDOW) regulations by professional councils operating under the Council for the Built Environment (CBE) framework has introduced additional requirements regarding professional accountability, competency and the allocation of technical work. While these developments are often viewed primarily as regulatory compliance requirements, they also present an opportunity to strengthen municipal technical capability and improve infrastructure outcomes. This paper argues that professional registration alone is insufficient to address the capability challenges facing municipalities. Rather, municipalities must adopt a broader organisational professionalisation approach that integrates competency frameworks, technical career pathways, workforce planning, organisational design, technical governance and professional accountability mechanisms. Such an approach enables municipalities to function as Knowledgeable Clients capable of providing informed leadership throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. The paper introduces an Organisational Professionalisation Framework and an Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model that municipalities can utilise to assess and strengthen their capability. Drawing on the City of Cape Town’s Engineering Professionalisation Blueprint as a case study, the paper demonstrates how professionalisation initiatives can evolve beyond registration support programmes towards a comprehensive organisational capability strategy. The paper concludes that organisational professionalisation represents a strategic enabler of improved infrastructure delivery, enhanced public safety, stronger technical governance and sustainable municipal performance. 1. INTRODUCTION Municipal infrastructure forms the backbone of economic development, public health, environmental sustainability and service delivery. Roads, stormwater systems, water and sanitation networks, electricity infrastructure, public buildings and transportation systems collectively represent some of the most significant public investments made by local government. Municipalities are therefore entrusted with the stewardship of extensive infrastructure

portfolios whose performance directly affects the wellbeing of communities and the competitiveness of local economies. The successful delivery, operation and renewal of infrastructure depend fundamentally on the quality of technical decisions made throughout the asset lifecycle. Decisions relating to planning, design, procurement, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation influence infrastructure performance, public safety, lifecycle costs and service reliability. Consequently, municipalities require access to appropriately qualified and experienced built environment professionals capable of exercising sound professional judgement and providing effective technical leadership. Across South Africa, however, many municipalities face growing challenges in maintaining internal technical capability. Ageing workforces, difficulties attracting and retaining scarce skills, succession planning risks and declining levels of professional registration have contributed to increasing dependence on external consultants and contractors. While external service providers play an essential role in infrastructure delivery, excessive dependence on external expertise can erode institutional knowledge, weaken technical oversight and reduce an organisation’s ability to act as an informed client. At the same time, the South African built environment sector is undergoing significant regulatory reform. The implementation of Identification of Work (IDOW) regulations by professional councils operating under the Council for the Built Environment (CBE) framework has introduced greater emphasis on professional accountability, competence and the allocation of technical work according to levels of complexity and risk. Although these reforms are often viewed primarily through a compliance lens, they also present municipalities with an opportunity to strengthen organisational capability and improve infrastructure outcomes. This paper argues that professional registration, while essential to public protection, is insufficient on its own to address the capability challenges facing municipalities. Sustainable improvement requires a broader organisational professionalisation approach that integrates professional competence with workforce planning, organisational design, technical governance, accountability mechanisms and strategic capability management. Through this approach municipalities can strengthen their ability to function as Knowledgeable Clients capable of providing informed leadership throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. The paper introduces an Organisational Professionalisation Framework and Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model as practical tools to support municipal capability development. Drawing on lessons from the City of Cape Town’s Engineering Professionalisation Blueprint, the paper demonstrates how professionalisation initiatives can evolve from registration support programmes into broader organisational capability strategies that contribute to infrastructure delivery, public safety and technical governance.

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2. THE MUNICIPAL KNOWLEDGEABLE CLIENT The concept of the Knowledgeable Client has emerged internationally as a critical determinant of successful infrastructure delivery. Originating within asset-intensive industries such as energy, transportation and major infrastructure development, the concept recognises that organisations remain accountable for infrastructure outcomes regardless of the extent to which work is outsourced to consultants, contractors or service providers. A Knowledgeable Client is not an organisation that necessarily performs all technical work internally. Rather, it is an organisation that possesses sufficient internal capability to define requirements, evaluate alternatives, challenge recommendations, manage risks and make informed decisions throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. The Knowledgeable Client retains ownership of strategic decision-making and maintains the capacity to exercise effective oversight of external service providers. For municipalities, this capability is particularly important because infrastructure assets remain under municipal ownership long after projects have been completed. Unlike consultants or contractors whose involvement may be limited to specific phases of a project, municipalities remain responsible for asset performance, regulatory compliance, maintenance, renewal and public accountability over extended periods. Consequently, the municipality must possess sufficient internal competence to understand technical risks, evaluate infrastructure investment decisions and ensure that public resources are utilised effectively. Table 1 provides a comparison between a Knowledgeable Client and a technically dependent client organisation. The distinction between these two organisational states extends beyond technical expertise alone. A Knowledgeable Client typically demonstrates strong governance arrangements, informed decision-making processes, effective risk management and retention of institutional knowledge. By contrast, organisations that become overly dependent on external expertise often struggle to challenge recommendations, maintain continuity of knowledge and exercise effective oversight of technical work. The consequences of inadequate client capability are increasingly recognised within infrastructure sectors globally. Investigations into project failures, cost overruns and infrastructure underperformance frequently identify deficiencies in client capability as a contributing factor. Even where highly competent consultants and contractors are engaged, poor client capability can compromise outcomes through unclear requirements, inadequate oversight, delayed decision-making or ineffective governance arrangements. Within the South African municipal environment, the concept of the Knowledgeable Client has become increasingly relevant as municipalities confront growing infrastructure backlogs, escalating service delivery expectations and evolving professional regulatory requirements. The

TABLE 1: Knowledgeable Client vs Dependent Client Knowledgeable Client

Dependent Client

Maintains internal expertise

Relies heavily on external expertise

Challenges recommendations

Accepts recommendations without sufficient scrutiny

Retains institutional knowledge

Knowledge resides largely with consultants

Leads technical decisionmaking

Reacts to external advice

Maintains strong governance

Governance capability is weakened

Builds sustainable capability

Experiences recurring capability gaps

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Governance Failure

Supervision Failure

Competency Failure

Accountability Failure Infrastructure Failure

FIGURE 1: Infrastructure Failure Causation Model

implementation of Identification of Work regulations further reinforces the need for municipalities to strengthen internal capability. Compliance cannot be achieved solely through outsourcing technical functions; municipalities must retain sufficient professional capacity to understand, govern and oversee technical work performed on their behalf. The development of Knowledgeable Client capability therefore represents both a strategic organisational objective and a practical response to emerging regulatory requirements. Municipalities that invest in internal capability are better positioned to provide informed leadership, exercise effective governance and ensure that infrastructure investments deliver sustainable public value.

3. BUILT ENVIRONMENT REFORM, PUBLIC SAFETY AND TECHNICAL GOVERNANCE The built environment professions occupy a unique position within society. Engineers, architects, planners, surveyors, quantity surveyors and construction management professionals make decisions that directly influence public safety, economic development and the performance of critical infrastructure systems. Society therefore grants these professions significant authority and autonomy, while simultaneously expecting competence, ethical conduct and accountability. To support these objectives, South Africa established a legislative framework for the regulation of built environment professions through the Council for the Built Environment Act and associated professional council legislation. Professional registration provides assurance that practitioners possess the education, experience and competencies necessary to undertake work within their respective fields. Registered professionals are further bound by codes of conduct and disciplinary processes designed to protect the public interest. More recently, professional councils have increasingly focused on the implementation of Identification of Work rules. These rules seek to define categories of work that must be undertaken by appropriately registered practitioners possessing the necessary competencies and experience. The underlying principle is straightforward: as the complexity and risk associated with technical work increase, so too does the need for higher levels of competence, professional judgement and accountability. Although discussions regarding professional registration often focus on regulatory compliance, the primary purpose of professionalisation is public protection. Built environment professionals make decisions daily that affect the safety, reliability and sustainability of infrastructure assets used by millions of people. When professional competence, governance

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and accountability systems function effectively, infrastructure performs as intended and public confidence is maintained. When these systems fail, the consequences can be severe, resulting in injuries, fatalities, financial losses and reputational damage. Importantly, infrastructure failures are rarely attributable to a single technical error. Research and investigations consistently demonstrate that failures typically emerge from multiple weaknesses occurring simultaneously as demonstrated in Figure 1. Deficiencies in competence, supervision, governance, quality assurance, risk management and accountability often combine to create conditions under which failure becomes possible. Recent construction failures within South Africa provide important reminders of these realities. Investigations into incidents such as the Tongaat Mall collapse and the George building collapse have highlighted concerns relating not only to technical execution but also to broader issues of oversight, governance, compliance and accountability. While the specific circumstances differ, both incidents illustrate the importance of ensuring that technical decisions are made within robust systems of professional governance. The significance of these failures extends beyond the immediate projects concerned. Public confidence in infrastructure depends upon trust that appropriate systems exist to ensure competence, accountability and effective oversight. Infrastructure users are generally unable to independently assess the technical integrity of structures, networks and facilities. Instead, they rely on professional and organisational systems to provide assurance that infrastructure has been designed, constructed and maintained safely. Professionalisation therefore serves both a technical and societal purpose. Technically, it seeks to improve the quality of decisions affecting infrastructure assets. Societally, it maintains public trust in the institutions and professions responsible for delivering those assets. These objectives are inseparable and provide the foundation upon which modern systems of professional regulation are built.

4. WHY REGISTRATION ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH Professional registration remains one of the most important mechanisms available for protecting the public and assuring professional competence. Registration demonstrates that practitioners have achieved prescribed standards of education, experience and professional development and are willing to accept accountability for their work. It is therefore a critical component of any professionalisation strategy. However, increasing the number of professionally registered practitioners within an organisation does not automatically result in improved organisational capability. Municipalities may employ highly competent professionals yet still struggle to function as Knowledgeable Clients if organisational systems do not support professional practice. This distinction is particularly important in the context of Identification of Work implementation. While the rules identify who may undertake specific categories of work, municipalities must also ensure that organisational arrangements support appropriate allocation of responsibilities, professional oversight and accountability. Compliance therefore becomes both an individual and organisational responsibility. Many professionalisation initiatives focus primarily on increasing registration numbers through mentorship programmes, candidate development initiatives and continuing professional development activities. Although these interventions are valuable, they address only part of the challenge. Organisational capability is influenced by a broader range of factors, including workforce planning, organisational design, career pathways, governance structures and information management systems. For example, municipalities may experience difficulties where job profiles fail to reflect professional responsibilities, where career progression requires technical professionals

TABLE 2: Individual versus Organisational Professionalisation Individual Professionalisation

Organisational Professionalisation

Qualifications

Competency Frameworks

Registration

Workforce Planning

Experience

Career Pathways

Continuing Professional Development

Organisational Design

Ethics

Governance Systems

Technical Competence

Capability Management

to move into management roles, or where workforce planning processes do not identify future capability gaps. Under such circumstances, individual competence is constrained by organisational limitations, and the full benefits of professional registration cannot be realised. This broader perspective introduces the concept of organisational professionalisation. Organisational professionalisation extends beyond the development of individual practitioners and seeks to embed professional practice requirements within organisational systems, structures and processes. It recognises that sustainable capability emerges from the interaction between competent individuals, effective governance arrangements, workforce planning mechanisms and organisational accountability systems. The distinction between individual and organisational professionalisation is fundamental to understanding municipal capability development. Individual professionalisation focuses on qualifications, registration, experience and continuing professional development. Organisational professionalisation focuses on competency frameworks, workforce planning, career pathways, organisational design, technical governance and capability management. Table 2 summarises the difference between the focus areas of the two. The relationship between these dimensions is complementary rather than competing. Individual competence provides the foundation for professional practice, while organisational professionalisation creates the environment within which that competence can be developed, retained and applied effectively. Municipalities seeking to strengthen their Knowledgeable Client capability must therefore focus on both dimensions simultaneously. The next section proposes an Organisational Professionalisation Framework that integrates these requirements into a coherent municipal capability model and provides a practical roadmap for implementation.

5. AN ORGANISATIONAL PROFESSIONALISATION FRAMEWORK FOR MUNICIPALITIES 5.1 From Professional Registration to Organisational Capability The preceding discussion has established that professional registration is necessary but insufficient to create sustainable municipal capability. While registration confirms individual competence, municipalities function as complex socio-technical systems in which infrastructure outcomes depend on the interaction between people, processes, governance arrangements and organisational structures. This requirement necessitates a shift in thinking. Professionalisation should no longer be viewed solely as a registration initiative. Rather, it should be understood as an organisational capability strategy that aligns professional competence with infrastructure delivery requirements, workforce planning and technical governance.

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To support this transition, an Organisational Professionalisation Framework as depicted in Figure 2 has been developed. The framework integrates the principal organisational components required to support professional practice and strengthen Knowledgeable Client capability.

Knowledgeable Client Capability Technical Governance

Workforce Planning

Job Architechture

Technical Career Pathways

Competency Frameworks

Professional Registration

FIGURE 2: Organisational Professional Framework Collectively, these pillars create the organisational environment within which professional competence can be developed, applied and retained. 5.2 Registration-Aligned Competency Frameworks Competency frameworks provide the foundation upon which professionalisation programmes are built. They define the knowledge, skills, behaviours and professional attributes required to perform work at different levels of responsibility and complexity. Historically, many municipal competency frameworks have focused primarily on generic management and administrative requirements. While these competencies remain important, they often fail to adequately reflect the technical responsibilities associated with built environment professions. A registration-aligned competency framework addresses this limitation by linking organisational competency requirements to professional council standards and Identification of Work expectations. Such frameworks provide clarity regarding required competencies, levels of professional responsibility, progression requirements, technical leadership expectations and development priorities. The framework further supports recruitment, performance management, succession planning and learning and development activities by establishing a consistent competency language across the organisation. Importantly, competency frameworks create transparency regarding what constitutes competence at different levels of professional practice. This assists both employees and managers in understanding capability requirements and identifying development priorities. 5.3 Registration-Based Technical Career Pathways One of the most persistent challenges facing municipalities is the retention of experienced technical professionals. Traditional organisational structures frequently reward progression into management positions while providing limited opportunities for advancement within technical disciplines. The consequence is often the loss of technical expertise from operational and specialist roles as experienced professionals migrate into management positions that may not fully utilise their technical capabilities. Registration-based technical career pathways provide an alternative approach. These pathways recognise increasing levels of professional competence and responsibility while enabling progression within technical streams. Such pathways provide several benefits: • Improved attraction of scarce skills.

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• Enhanced retention of technical expertise. • Stronger succession planning. • Increased motivation to pursue professional registration. • Improved organisational capability. Equally important, technical pathways reinforce the message that technical excellence is valued as highly as managerial capability. This cultural shift is often essential for sustaining professionalisation initiatives over the long term. 5.4 Registration-Aligned Job Architecture Professional accountability depends on clarity regarding roles, responsibilities and decision-making authority. Municipal job architectures therefore need to reflect professional practice requirements and Identification of Work expectations. In many organisations, job profiles evolve incrementally over time and may no longer align with contemporary professional practice requirements. Misalignment can result in uncertainty regarding accountability, inappropriate allocation of technical responsibilities and ineffective utilisation of professional expertise. Registration-aligned job architecture seeks to address these challenges by linking: • Job complexity. • Professional responsibility. • Registration categories. • Competency requirements. • Delegated authority. This alignment ensures that organisational structures support rather than constrain professional practice. 5.5 Strategic Workforce Planning Professionalisation cannot be sustained without effective workforce planning. Municipalities must understand both their current capability profile and future capability requirements. Traditional workforce planning often focuses on headcount management. While important, this approach provides limited insight into professional capability risks. A professionalisation-based workforce planning approach considers: • Professional disciplines required. • Registration categories required. • Age profile analysis. • Succession planning risks. • Candidate development requirements. • Future infrastructure delivery needs. This perspective enables municipalities to move from reactive staffing decisions towards strategic capability planning. 5.6 Technical Governance Technical governance represents the mechanism through which professional accountability is translated into organisational decision-making. The City has recognised that accountability and organisational support must coexist. Professionals should be accountable for the decisions they make within their area of responsibility. At the same time, organisations should provide appropriate support mechanisms that enable professionals to exercise informed judgement without undue concern regarding personal exposure when acting in good faith and within the scope of their authority. Professional indemnity arrangements therefore represent an important enabling mechanism within broader professionalisation programmes. Governance arrangements provide assurance that technical decisions are reviewed, challenged and approved at appropriate levels of competence and authority. Examples include: • Technical review committees.

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• Design review processes. • Delegation frameworks. • Independent peer reviews. • Competency assurance systems. Strong technical governance reduces organisational risk while simultaneously strengthening professional accountability and public confidence. 5.7 Professionalisation Information Management Professionalisation initiatives depend on reliable information. Without accurate data, organisations struggle to understand capability risks, monitor registration progress or evaluate programme effectiveness. Professionalisation information systems should provide visibility regarding: • Registration status. • Candidate development. • Mentorship relationships. • Competency levels. • Workforce risks. • Succession planning indicators. Reliable information enables evidence-based decision-making and supports continuous improvement. 5.8 The Professionalisation Value Chain The six pillars of the framework are mutually reinforcing and should not be implemented in isolation. The Professionalisation Value Chain shown in Figure 3 illustrates how competency frameworks, career pathways, workforce planning and governance arrangements collectively contribute to Knowledgeable Client capability. Registration therefore becomes one component of a broader organisational system rather than an isolated objective.

Education

Knowledgeable Client Capability

Improved Infrastructure Outcomes

Competency Development

Technical Governance

Public Trust

Professional Registration

IDOW Compliance

FIGURE 3: Professionalisation Value Chain 6. CITY OF CAPE TOWN CASE STUDY: FROM ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALISATION TO ORGANISATIONAL PROFESSIONALISATION 6.1 Origins of the Engineering Professionalisation Initiative The City of Cape Town’s professionalisation journey originated from concerns regarding declining registration levels, succession planning risks and the increasing complexity of municipal infrastructure delivery. Initial efforts focused primarily on supporting candidate engineers pursuing professional registration. While these interventions achieved positive outcomes, it soon became apparent that registration challenges were symptoms of broader organisational capability issues. Professional registration could not be addressed sustainably without simultaneously addressing mentorship capacity, workforce planning, career pathways, organisational structures and technical governance. This realisation led to the development of the City’s Engineering Professionalisation Blueprint, outlined in Figure 4.

Mentorship

Professional Registration

Professional Development Plans

Candidate Development

Project Complexity Assessment

Registration Roadmaps

Knowledgeable Client Capability

FIGURE 4: Engineering Professionalisation Blueprint The Blueprint established a structured approach to professional development while simultaneously identifying organisational barriers affecting professional progression. 6.2 Key Programme Components The programme introduced a range of interventions including: • Registration roadmaps. • Personal Development Plans. • Structured mentorship programmes. • Mentor development initiatives. • Mock professional reviews. • Continuing Professional Development support. • Professional review preparation workshops. • Professional registration tracking systems. These initiatives improved visibility of candidate progression and strengthened organisational support for professional registration. However, the most significant lesson was that registration outcomes depended heavily on organisational conditions rather than individual effort alone. 6.3 From Registration Support to Capability Development As the programme matured, attention increasingly shifted towards organisational capability. Project complexity assessments revealed the need to better align infrastructure portfolios with professional competency requirements. Workforce planning processes highlighted succession risks within critical disciplines. Organisational reviews identified opportunities to strengthen technical governance and improve utilisation of professional expertise. The City’s experience demonstrated that sustainable professionalisation requires integration across multiple organisational functions including technical departments, human resources, organisational design, learning and development and executive leadership. Professionalisation therefore evolved from a technical initiative into a strategic organisational programme. 6.4 Emergence of Built Environment Professionalisation The establishment of the Specialist Advisor Built Environment Professionalisation (SABEP) function reflected recognition that professionalisation extends beyond engineering disciplines. The function is at present fulfilled by a retired professional engineer on a 3-year contract basis supported by the Engineering Management Branch. The SABEP ensures that multiple built environment professionals collaborate towards the common organisational objectives set by the professionalisation framework. The City’s evolving approach therefore seeks to create an integrated professionalisation model capable of supporting broader municipal capability development across the built environment sector.

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FIGURE 5: Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model

Level 1 Registration Awareness

Level 2 Registration Support

Level 3 Registration Development

6.5 Lessons for Municipalities Several lessons emerge from the City of Cape Town experience. • First, professionalisation should be viewed as a strategic organisational initiative rather than solely a registration programme. • Second, registration numbers are an important indicator but should not be treated as the ultimate objective. Organisational capability remains the primary goal. • Third, leadership commitment is essential. Professionalisation initiatives require sustained support across multiple organisational functions. • Finally, reliable information is indispensable. Organisations cannot effectively manage capability risks without accurate professionalisation data. These lessons informed the development of the Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model presented in the next section.

7. ORGANISATIONAL PROFESSIONALISATION MATURITY MODEL 7.1 A Maturity-based Approach Municipalities differ considerably in their professionalisation capability and readiness for Identification of Work implementation. While some organisations have mature professionalisation programmes, others remain at the early stages of understanding registration and capability requirements. Recognising these differences, an Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model has been developed to provide a practical roadmap for implementation. The model shown in Figure 5 consists of six progressive levels of maturity. Each level builds upon the capabilities established at preceding levels. 7.2 Progression Through the Maturity Levels The model is intentionally progressive. Organisations should not attempt to implement advanced professionalisation interventions before foundational elements have been established. • Early maturity levels focus primarily on understanding capability risks, improving registration awareness and supporting candidates. • Intermediate levels introduce structured professionalisation systems including competency frameworks, workforce planning and career pathways. • Higher maturity levels focus on integration of professionalisation within organisational governance, strategy and decision-making. • At the highest level, professionalisation becomes embedded within organisational culture and is no longer viewed as a standalone programme. 7.3 Characteristics of a Professionalised Municipality A fully professionalised municipality demonstrates: • Strong technical leadership.

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Level 4 Competency & Career Alignment

Level 5 Organisational Alignment

Level 6 Organisational Professionalisation

• High levels of professional registration. • Registration-aligned competency frameworks. • Effective workforce planning. • Integrated professionalisation information systems. • Robust technical governance. • Reduced dependence on external expertise. • Strong Knowledgeable Client capability. Professional registration becomes a natural consequence of organisational systems rather than the primary objective of those systems. A summary of the primary focus of each professional maturity level is provided in Table 3.

TABLE 3: Summary of Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Levels Level

Description

Primary Focus

Registration Awareness

Understanding the challenge

Registration Support

Supporting candidates

Registration Development

Structured registration programmes

Competency and Career Alignment

Workforce capability

Organisational Alignment

Systems integration

Organisational Professionalisation

Knowledgeable Client capability

The maturity model provides municipalities with a practical mechanism for assessing their current position, prioritising interventions and guiding implementation over time.

8. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MUNICIPAL IMPLEMENTATION Based on the Organisational Professionalisation Framework, the City of Cape Town experience and the proposed Maturity Model, several recommendations are offered for municipal implementation. 8.1 Treat Professionalisation as a Strategic Organisational Initiative Professionalisation should not be viewed solely as a technical department initiative or a human resource intervention. Municipal councils, executive leadership teams and senior management should recognise professionalisation as a strategic organisational priority that directly influences infrastructure delivery, service sustainability, risk management and public safety. Embedding professionalisation within organisational strategies and governance frameworks will improve alignment between capability development and municipal service delivery objectives. 8.2 Develop Formal Professionalisation Strategies Municipalities should develop structured professionalisation strategies aligned with organisational objectives, workforce planning requirements and professional council expectations. These strategies should clearly

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define responsibilities, implementation priorities, performance measures and reporting mechanisms. A formal strategy provides the governance framework necessary to sustain professionalisation beyond individual champions or short-term initiatives. 8.3 A lign Organisational Systems with Professional Practice Requirements Professional registration can only deliver its full value when supported by appropriate organisational systems. Municipalities should therefore review competency frameworks, job architecture, career pathways and workforce planning processes to ensure alignment with Identification of Work requirements and professional accountability expectations. Such alignment strengthens both compliance and organisational capability. 8.4 Strengthen Technical Governance Municipalities should establish governance arrangements that support independent professional judgement and effective technical oversight. These arrangements may include technical review committees, design review processes, competency assurance systems and clearly defined technical approval authorities. Strong governance not only improves decision quality but also reinforces public confidence in municipal infrastructure delivery. 8.5 Invest in Capability Information Systems Professionalisation requires reliable information. Municipalities should establish integrated systems capable of tracking registration status, candidate development, competency profiles, succession risks and workforce capability indicators. The objective should be to create a single source of truth capable of supporting evidence-based workforce planning and professionalisation decision-making. 8.6 Adopt a Maturity-Based Implementation Approach Municipalities differ significantly in terms of capability, resources and readiness for professionalisation. Implementation approaches should therefore be tailored to organisational maturity levels. The Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model provides a practical mechanism for assessing current capability and prioritising interventions appropriate to organisational circumstances. Progressive implementation is likely to be more sustainable and effective than attempting large-scale transformation without foundational systems in place.

building initiative. The concept of the Knowledgeable Client provides a useful lens through which to understand this challenge. Municipalities remain accountable for infrastructure outcomes regardless of the extent to which work is outsourced. Consequently, they require sufficient internal capability to define requirements, evaluate alternatives, manage risks and provide informed oversight throughout the infrastructure lifecycle. To support this objective, the paper introduced an Organisational Professionalisation Framework comprising six interdependent pillars: registration-aligned competency frameworks, technical career pathways, registration-aligned job architecture, strategic workforce planning, technical governance and professionalisation information management. Together, these elements provide the organisational conditions necessary for professional competence to be developed, retained and applied effectively. The City of Cape Town case study demonstrated how professionalisation initiatives can evolve from registration support programmes into broader organisational capability strategies. The lessons emerging from this experience suggest that sustainable professionalisation requires collaboration across technical functions, human resources, organisational design and executive leadership. Most importantly, they demonstrate that registration outcomes improve when organisational systems actively support professional practice. The Organisational Professionalisation Maturity Model further provides municipalities with a practical roadmap for implementation. By recognising that professionalisation is a journey rather than a destination, the model enables municipalities to assess their current capability, prioritise interventions and progressively strengthen organisational maturity over time.

REFERENCES Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), 2026. Identification of Engineering Work Rules. Johannesburg: ECSA. FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers), 2022. Guidance Relating to Informed and Intelligent Clients. Geneva: FIDIC. Republic of South Africa, 2000a. Council for the Built Environment Act, Act 43 of 2000. Pretoria: Government Printer. Republic of South Africa, 2000b. Engineering Profession Act, Act 46 of 2000. Pretoria: Government Printer. Republic of South Africa, 2000c. Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, Act 32 of 2000. Pretoria: Government Printer. Republic of South Africa, 2021. Local Government Municipal Staff Regulations. Pretoria: Government Printer. Sibiya, J., 2024. Keynote Address delivered at the Enhancing Construction Health and Safety Conference, 14 October 2024.

9. CONCLUSION Municipal infrastructure delivery depends fundamentally on the quality of technical decisions made throughout the asset lifecycle. These decisions influence public safety, service delivery performance, infrastructure sustainability and public confidence. As municipalities confront increasing infrastructure demands, ageing technical workforces and evolving regulatory requirements, the need for sustainable organisational capability has become increasingly important. The implementation of Identification of Work rules represents a significant milestone in South Africa’s built environment reform journey. While these reforms strengthen professional accountability and public protection, they also highlight the limitations of approaches that focus exclusively on professional registration. Registration remains a critical component of professional practice, but registration alone cannot create the organisational capability required to manage complex infrastructure portfolios. This paper has argued that municipalities should view professionalisation not merely as a compliance requirement, but as a strategic capability-

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PAPER 12

THE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT ACT HAS BEEN DECLARED INVALID – WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR A JUDICIOUSLY REIMAGINED BLUEPRINT FOR EFFECTIVE PROCUREMENT? Chris Wilcock WSSA (Pty) Ltd

ABSTRACT When questioned on the delay in getting a much-needed project off the ground, many a municipal engineer has replied, in exasperation, “It is stuck at Supply Chain!” I have much sympathy for the colleagues in procurement who face pressures, sometimes intolerable, from all sides. The fact is, though, that there is a perception that Supply Chain (to be called Procurement going forward) is a roadblock in service delivery. In even the best run municipalities, the awarding of tenders can take an inordinate amount of time. The “new” Public Procurement Act, 28 of 2024 (the Act) sought, among other objectives, to “… improve efficiency and effectiveness in procurement by streamlining procurement processes, amongst others, through the use of technology”. One of the key problems facing public procurement practitioners is the fragmentation of the legislative framework governing public procurement. The Act sought to significantly reduce the plethora of laws and quasi-laws that practitioners have to take into account. The Regulations, which had to be gazetted before the impugned Act could come into effect, had been drafted by National Treasury and, at the time of writing, had been published for public comment in terms of the public participation process. Numerous submissions had been made by the closing date for submission of 15 July 2026. These were to have been considered by National Treasury before being revised and then submitted to the National Assembly for parliamentary scrutiny as required by the Act. Only thereafter could the Regulations be gazetted. As evident from the timeline shown here, the process was well advanced and the regulations, albeit flawed, were getting close to bringing the Act into effect. The unanimous Constitutional Court judgment handed down on 17 September 2026, has upset the proverbial applecart, leaving the public procurement community, the builders of public infrastructure and all those engaged in service delivery asking, “What now?” This paper will attempt to answer that question and will propose to municipal engineers an approach to effectively function during this period of uncertainty so that everything does not remain stuck at Supply Chain. 1. INTRODUCTION In my 2025 paper and presentation to the IMESA conference, I focussed on the Public Procurement Act, 28 of 2024 (the Act), which was, at the time, awaiting the making of the regulations by the Minister of Finance in terms of section 63.(1) of the Act. As pointed out then, the Act was not, and could not, be in effect because it needed the regulations to be made by the Minister of Finance to give it practical effect. The long process of rationalising, modernising and streamlining South African public procurement, while having some way to go, and being somewhat flawed, was quite far advanced until the 17 September 2026 Constitutional Court judgment invalidating the Act was handed down. The judgment, while crystal clear in its reasoning and wording, has caused considerable uncertainty within the public procurement sector. The court,

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presumably mindful of the separation of powers between the judicial, legislative and executive arms of government, expressly refrained from ordering a remedy. The Court merely declared the Act, in its entirety, invalid, not on its merits, but for the defective process followed. This paper will deal with the following aspects: - A brief overview of the Constitutional Court judgment; - A brief description of the current status of the legislation; - The options now open to the legislators; - An analysis of the draft regulations, some of which can be used under the current legislation, likely to affect the municipal engineers’ work; - The challenges to be addressed during the revision of the Act; and - Recommendations for the interim period. For the sake of brevity and clarity, the following terms will be understood to have the meanings set out below unless the context clearly indicates otherwise: - The “Act” refers to the Public Procurement Act, 28 of 2024 – now invalid; - The “regulations” refer to the draft General Public Procurement Regulations, 2026; and - The “Minister” refers to the Minister of Finance of the Republic of South Africa. For further clarity and in keeping with the context of this paper, I will use the word “municipality” rather than the more cumbersome term “procuring institution” which is used to refer to organs of state in general.

2. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT JUDGMENT There were actually two cases brought before the court. These were Premier of the Western Cape Government and Another v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others and City of Cape Town and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others but due to the overlap of the two cases they were heard together and a single judgment was handed down. It must be emphasised that the declaration of invalidity of the Act was not at all on its merits but rather on the public participation process which was defective. One of the contentious parts of the Act was chapter 4 dealing with preferential procurement. Chapter 4 received mention in the judgment but again, not on its merits but rather because it differed materially from the version which had gone through the public participation process – flawed as it was. One of the key points made by this judgment was that, as in this case, where legislation will have a material impact on the public it is, in the words of the judgment at [77], “crucial that the public be afforded the fullest opportunity to have their voices heard during the legislative process”. This right to be heard has been determined by the Constitutional Court in earlier judgments, including SA Veterinary Association v Speaker of the National Assembly, to also apply when material amendments are made to Bills which have already been subject to the public participation process. Such amendments require further public participation. It is furthermore clear that the Court requires public participation to be a genuine effort to obtain and consider the views of the public. The public participation process shall be meaningful and may not be merely an exercise in compliance.

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This judgment will surely be used as authority in future cases regarding the duty of government to meaningfully consult with its constituents when making laws which impact on them. These laws include not only Acts of parliament and their regulations but also by-laws and other subordinate legislation. The key take-away is that the legislator is not bound to agree with or adopt every, or indeed any, submission made provided that these are at least considered and their merits evaluated. The Constitutional Court has set out clear guidelines on what is acceptable so there is no excuse for government to short-change the public.

are likely to directly impact on municipal service delivery, particularly the engineering function, will be discussed in Section 4 below. The declaration of invalidity now gives the legislator the opportunity to rectify these deficiencies. It is hoped that the voluminous submissions made by the procurement community, engineers, legal practitioners, and suppliers will be used to improve the revised Bill to be subjected to a proper consultative process before being sent to parliament. The comments already made and those still to be made will surely be helpful to the drafters of the Bill and the subsequent regulations.

3. THE CURRENT STATUS OF THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS 3.1 Brief overview of the current status of the Act and the regulations The Act was signed into law by the president on 18 July 2024. There was much fanfare around the Act and great expectations within the public procurement community that at last South African public procurement was on the road to greater efficiency and reduced fragmentation, both of which are objectives of the Act. H owever, at the time of writing more than 2 years later, the Act, imperfect as it may have been, and even before it could come into effect, has been declared invalid by the Constitutional Court. Consequently, the Act’s draft regulations, which had been going through their own public participation process, are thus null and void because regulations cannot exist without the primary legislation to which they are subordinate.

3.4 The options now open to the legislators When a court reviews and declares invalid an Act it may order, in terms of section 172(1)(b) of the Constitution, a just and equitable remedy. This may include the suspension of the invalidity to give the legislature time to remedy the defects in the Act. In this case the court refrained from framing any remedy. The judgment stated that the Court should “avoid directing Parliament’s affairs” and would not instruct Parliament on how to remedy the procedural defects in the enactment of the legislation. As there is already legislation in place, primarily being the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) and the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA) and their respective regulations and others, public procurement will merely proceed as it does under the current legislation. The Minister may, by way of Treasury Instructions applicable to PFMA entities, and regulations, in the case of MFMA entities, take steps to improve the current procurement legislative framework, during the revision process. Following the judgment, which did not prescribe a remedy, the Minister is free to do one of the following: (i) Do nothing and retain the current set of laws with or without amendments and improvements; (ii) Retain the current version of the Act in its entirety and re-introduce it as a Bill after following a proper public participation process; (iii) Revise the Act using public and stakeholder input and use that as a draft Bill for the public participation and legislative process; or (iv) Go right back to the start of the legislative process by drawing up a green paper, followed by a white paper before introducing a Bill to Parliament involving the public, academics, practitioners and other stakeholders throughout the process. My expectation, based on the Minister’s media statement, is that the 3rd option, rather than the 4th option, will be selected due to the shorter time needed. Treasury can now take the opportunity to improve the Act and the subsequent regulations based on the inputs received in order to make it acceptable to the current political dispensation which sees parties which were in the opposition when the Act was enacted in 2024, now participating in the Government of National Unity (GNU). As stated by the internationally regarded law professor from Stellenbosch University and APLU director, Geo Quinot, the Minister will have to revise the Act to get it through the GNU.

3.2 How the legislative framework would have looked under the new Act and its regulations Although the Act has ceased to exist and the regulations cannot exist without the Act, the framework which the Act sought to establish is briefly described here to give context to the current situation. A knowledge of the provisions of the Act is still relevant and does warrant discussion, as the Minister of Finance has stated that the Act will not be abandoned. In a statement released by National Treasury on 17 September 2026, the Minister and the National Treasury reaffirmed their commitment to achieve a single Act regulating public procurement in South Africa. The implementation of the Act has thus been delayed, and the practical effect of the court order is that procurement shall proceed under the current legal framework. Furthermore, the final accepted version of the Act and its regulations may differ materially from the Act in its current form. There are positive features of the Act that are unlikely to find serious opposition from those who seek the reform and improvement of public procurement. The fragmentation of the public procurement legislation has long been a concern as described in the 2025 paper. That concern and the initiatives to rationalise, modernise and streamline the legislation remain valid. For now, these initiatives will have to take place under current legislation as far as this allows. One of the stated objectives of the Act was to reduce the number of pieces of legislation regulating public procurement. The Act sought to repeal several pieces of legislation whose provisions would be consolidated into the Act itself. Examples are the Public Procurement Preference Framework Act, 5 of 2000 and its Preferential Procurement Regulations, 2022, the provisions of which would have been covered under sections 17–23 of the Act and Chapter 5 of the regulations. As will also be discussed in this paper there are however a few potential disconnects with other legislation including the CIDB Act in respect of infrastructure procurement and the BBBEE Act regarding preferential procurement. 3.3 Current uncertainties The draft regulations as they stood revealed some uncertainties despite the best efforts of the drafters. A more detailed analysis, including the deliberations of the APLU conference held on 4–5 June 2026 revealed more apparent gaps and uncertainties. Due to lack of space only those that

4. THE REGULATIONS THAT COULD DIRECTLY IMPACT THE MUNICIPAL ENGINEERING SECTOR 4.1 Overview At the outset I must point out that every organ of state, be it a large stateowned entity, a national department, a metro or a small rural municipality, would be treated equally and have equal obligations under the regulations. Clearly this one-size-fits-all approach is impractical and would place intolerable burdens on the smaller and less well-resourced municipalities. This point was made by numerous commentators and will surely be taken into account and hopefully catered for in the revised legislation. IMESA is urged, as an organisation and as individuals, to consider this and make the appropriate representations when the time comes.

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The regulations which could most directly impact on the municipal engineers are: - Regulation 4 which sets out in great detail the steps that the municipality must take to develop and implement a procurement system that promotes strategic procurement; - Regulation 5(4) which requires the municipality to verify the information provided by bidders; - Regulations 6–22 which describe procurement methods and procedures; - Regulations 23–25 which deal with the bid evaluation process; and - Chapter 4 which regulates the procurement of infrastructure and capital assets. Due to the wide scope and complexity of the regulations, I will provide only a broad overview of those listed above as they were included in the draft regulations, what can be used and what is required to improve them, viewed through the lens of the municipal engineer. I have, in this paper, drawn heavily on the collective expertise of the public procurement community associated with the African Procurement Law Unit (APLU) of Stellenbosch University headed by Professors Geo Quinot and Sope Willians, the proceedings of the APLU conference held on 4–5 June 2026 and the weekly webinar series hosted by Mr Shaun Scott. Where I draw specifically on individual presentations, these are acknowledged. In many instances I draw on the views expressed by participants which cannot practically be formally referenced but I do acknowledge, with thanks, the contributions by the community. 4.2 Regulation 4 – Promotion of strategic procurement This regulation requires the municipality to promote strategic procurement. The first problem with this regulation is glaringly obvious – to promote something you need to know exactly what you are promoting. The Act defined the term strategic procurement as “a comprehensive approach to procurement that aligns with the strategies and objectives of a procuring institution, thereby enhancing cost-effectiveness”. That definition states policy and provides the platform for the regulation, which is supposed to elaborate, describe and clarify the Act. The draft states, in regulation 4(1), that “[a] procuring institution must develop and implement its procurement system in a structured, systematic and data-driven approach to plan, manage, and develop its supply base in line with its objectives…” This, with respect, is restating policy and not giving detailed instructions or guidelines. This lack of clarity is problematic and needs to be addressed in the new version. Certainty is one of the cornerstones of good law and good procurement. Having vague legislation will lead to vague bid documents which invite challenges and delays. Froneman J, writing the unanimous Constitutional Court judgment in the case known as Allpay I, confirmed that vagueness is a valid ground for review under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA). Secondly, the regulation places some onerous burdens on the municipality to carry out analyses and market research. Smaller and medium municipalities simply will not have the resources to comply and will be forced to go to consultants thereby diverting funds from essential services. As stated in the overview above, I urge IMESA, whose members will be tasked with implementation, to strongly lobby for a more practical and achievable framework for strategic procurement. It should also be borne in mind that the recently published draft CIDB Draft Standard for Uniformity in Construction Procurement, adopts the same-one-size-fits-all approach and imposes further parallel burdens on the municipality. 4.3 Regulation 5(4) – Prospective supplier database This is another regulation which will surely survive the revision process.

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Regulation 5 would require the Public Procurement Office (the PPO) to establish and maintain a central database of suppliers and for suppliers to self-register. This will probably be similar to the current Central Supplier Database (CSD) but with the terminology available by then it will hopefully have increased functionality. This will then allow it to become a powerful tool to establish beneficial ownership, expose fronting and identify operators of debarred entities who simply reappear under the guise of new entities. The part that could burden municipal procurement is regulation 5(4) which requires the municipality to verify, “against available data sources and databases,” the information submitted by bidders to verify that the bidder is eligible to bid, has provided complete information and that the information provided is correct and not false. For this to be done without adding administrative burdens, an enhanced AI-powered PPO database will be a tool to avoid the municipality having to check, for every single bidder, numerous sources such as the CIPC, the debarred bidders lists, the CIDB register of contractors and SARS, among others. From a bidder’s point of view, it is hoped that this database will be more effective than the CSD in verifying the information rather than having to submit the same information and supporting documentation repeatedly. Most, if not all municipal engineers, will by now be using artificial intelligence (AI) in some form and will appreciate the power of AI to perform routine tasks when used correctly. A well designed, user-friendly database will go a long way to make the verification process quick, accurate and corruption-resistant. 4.4 Parts 3-8 (Regulations 6-22) – Procurement methods, requirements and procedures These parts describe the procurement methods and procedure that municipalities are permitted to use, and which include various open competitive methods as well as direct procurement. Many of the methods and procedures will be familiar as they are currently in use, but the regulations do introduce one new method, competitive dialogue, and improves the descriptions of two others viz. direct procurement and frameworks which are also known as panels. The reset caused by the Constitutional court judgment should be used as an opportunity to address the concerns that we have with the draft regulations which confuse procedures with methods and exclude some useful methods including petty cash procurement and community-based projects. It must also address the provision in regulation 6(2) which was identified during discussions in the APLU webinar series (2026) as a potential loophole that could see any procuring institution by-passing many of the regulations. Regulation 6(2)(a) states that the listed methods may “be adapted or modified depending on the circumstances or conditions”. These adaptations or modifications do not need any approvals or deviations and do not need to be reported anywhere. The implication of this regulation is that the procuring institution can, in their procurement policy completely ignore, for example open bidding, can disregard minimum advertising periods, and can dispense with any of the prescribed evaluation criteria. Even individual bids can be tailored by the Bid Specification Committee to suit their own agenda. At best this can cause chaos with each municipality completely rewriting the requirements and leaving the bidders struggling to comply with a myriad of requirements. At worst it will reopen the door to rampant state capture and corruption. It is inconceivable that this by-passing mechanism represents the intention of the drafters and will probably not survive the revision and public consultation process.

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4.4.1 Petty Cash A method currently in use is petty cash procurement for the procurement of small items that do not justify using one of the formal methods. However, the draft regulations do not provide for this, which is, I believe, an unfortunate omission. Imagine the situation where a plumber urgently needs a rubber O-ring, which is not available in the municipal stores. Instead of being able to purchase it with petty cash, a procurement process needs to be carried out. This may be an extreme example but not being able to use petty cash purchases will result in plenty of unnecessary administrative work and delays. 4.4.2 Requests for quotations, bids and proposals Regulations 7–9 regulate these open competitive methods. As will be seen below the requirements to use a specific method allow discretion by the municipality in the choice of the method. The user department will thus have to submit a detailed proposal to the Bid Specification Committee. Discussion of these is limited to a brief description as it is likely that they will be refined during the revision and rerun public participation process. 4.4.2.1 Regulation 7 – Quotations For procurement of standardised, low risk items where evaluation is primarily based on price and where the value is below a threshold still to be prescribed, written quotations may be requested from at least three bidders listed on the supplier database. It is not a truly open method as it will not be advertised and only those invited will be eligible to bid. One of the obvious shortcomings with this regulation is that the conditions under which this method is permitted are not clear and will require the exercise of discretion, which many public sector procurement officials and management are reluctant to do – especially after recent judgments that have imposed personal costs orders on officials. Furthermore, there is no clarity on which of the suppliers on the database will be requested to provide quotations. The regulations are silent on whether a rotation basis is acceptable or not. 4.4.2.2 Regulation 8 – Request for bids (RFB) This open competitive method may be used for procurement of the same nature as that for which the quotation method is permitted but is above the still to be prescribed threshold. The current draft contains an error and a discrepancy so it is not discussed further here as it will need correction during the revision process. 4.4.2.3 Regulation 9 – Request for proposals (RFP) Regulation 9(2) would allow the municipality to use this open competitive method when: • the bid is complex; requires specialised expertise; requires performancebased outcomes; or requires innovation; • the market is competitive; • the evaluation is not based primarily on price; and • the bidders have to propose solutions, methodologies, resources or innovative approaches. 4.4.2.4 Practical implications of regulations 7–9 (RFQ, RFB and RFP) For municipal engineers the RFQ method will not have many implications due to the low value likely to be prescribed but could be used for smaller maintenance items where price should be the determining factor. Items that come to mind are pipe fittings and repair components where the existing pipes are known and thus the specifications are fixed. The RFB method will be mainly used for construction where the design has been done and the specifications well-defined, either in-house or by

a consultant. This method corresponds largely to the request for tenders or request for bids methods currently in use and the evaluation should be on price and preference together with functionality. The Request for Proposals (RFP) differs from the RFB method in the sense that the specifications are not complete and the bidder has to do a significant amount of design. It can also be used for turnkey projects where the inputs are known e.g. the design and build of a water treatment works where the required volumes are known, the characteristics of the raw water are known to lie between upper and lower parameters and the SANS 241 standard defines the output. In a case like this the bidder will propose the treatment process, design the civil, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation works and tender a cost. This method will require a sophisticated evaluation process to judge whether the proposed solution would work, the practicality of its operations and maintenance and the lifecycle costs to award the most economically advantageous bid which will not necessarily be the one with the lowest price. Both the RFB and RFP methods could incorporate the two envelope or two-stage bidding methods which are currently also in use, and which are described in regulations 10 and 11. 4.4.3 Regulations 12 and 13 – Competitive dialogue method and competitive negotiation procedure These methods will be new to South African public procurement. Competitive negotiation is one of the methods contained in the UNCITRAL Model Law, so enjoys international recognition. Dialogue is also recognised by the Model Law as one of the methods for use in public procurement. Competitive dialogue is described in regulation 12(1) as an “augmented two-stage procedure” and, as its name suggests, contemplates a two-stage process where potential bidders are short-listed in the first phase and additional iterations take place in the second stage. This is a useful method where the best solution is not immediately apparent, and it allows for the municipality to lawfully engage with suppliers in an open and transparent manner to iteratively arrive at the best solution which is not necessarily the cheapest solution. This is a significant departure from the current situation where contact with potential bidders during the procurement process is frowned upon and can lead to challenges. It is hoped that these methods remain in the revised Bill as they are potentially useful albeit not without problems in implementation. 4.4.4 Direct procurement (regulation 14) and procuring from a manufacturer (regulation 17) These are non-competitive methods and procedures which may be used in certain circumstances such as sole supplier, intellectual property rights, emergencies or practicality. There are other reasons for direct procurement stated in the regulations, but these are the ones of interest to the municipal engineer. These two methods will inevitably spark discussion on the use of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) where the use of OEM equipment can be justified when replacement parts are needed, multiple operating procedures and duplication of spares are to be avoided and replacing or modifying of surrounding infrastructure would be costly and time-consuming. The regulations do however warn against becoming overly reliant on a specific supplier and seeks to guard against becoming comfortable with a regular supplier. Remember also that section 24(1)(d) of the Act prohibits the use of evaluation criteria which prevent the participation of new entrants. 4.4.5 Framework agreements under regulation 15 This method, currently known as “panels” warrants some discussion due to its usefulness to municipal engineers and because it is currently widely used.

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Framework agreements are internationally recognised and are a useful method to use for maintenance of infrastructure where the municipality anticipates that various works will be required but does not know, in advance, exactly what works will be required. The UNCITRAL Model Law (2011) defines the framework agreement procedure as a two-stage procedure whereby a supplier or a number of suppliers are selected during the first stage to enter a framework agreement with a view to awarding work to one or more framework contractors during the second stage. The description in regulation 15(1) is essentially the same as the UNCITRAL definition; thus, aligning it with international best practice. The second stage can be with or without competition between the contracted suppliers appointed during the first stage. Frameworks can either be open where additional suppliers can be admitted during the term of the framework or closed whereby no additional contractors are admitted. The open framework means additional administrative work to evaluate new applicants whereas the closed method can be criticised for impeding the progress of new entrants. The obvious advantage for the municipal engineer needing to appoint a contractor at short notice to, for example, repair or replace a failed pump is that the first phase of the procurement process has already been done and quotations have only to be requested and adjudicated, which is a relatively quick process. A variation of this method is to appoint only two contractors in the first phase, if pricing is also part of the first phase. The two contractors are then ranked as the “winner” who is to be awarded all the work and a “runnerup” or standby supplier. If for some reason the “winner” cannot accept a work package it can be allocated to the standby. Due to the advantages of the use of panels these have come to be extensively used in recent years. However, on occasion, disputes over panels have ended up in litigation. South African courts have not criticised the use of panels as such but have reviewed a number of awards due to the improper appointment of the suppliers in the first stage and, more often, the unlawful application of the second stage. To illustrate the potential difficulties, a few cases are mentioned here. 4.4.5.1 The Tekoa and JK Structures judgments In Tekoa, the court criticised the bid specifications on the grounds of vagueness quoting the Constitutional Court judgment in the 2013 Allpay case with approval. This tender was for a panel of turnkey service providers but was ambiguous regarding the requirement for Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB)1 registration. Note that a judgment of the Constitutional Court is binding on all courts in South Africa in terms of the stare decisis principle of South African law. In JK Structures the Municipality declined to appoint JK Structures to the framework agreement due to what it held was an insufficient CIDB grading. The court held that being in the framework was not a construction contract and thus the Municipality had applied a too high CIDB requirement. These cases illustrate that, even in the first phase, problems can arise. The bid specifications must be carefully and correctly drawn up to avoid problems even before the second phase is embarked on. 4.4.5.2 The Maximum Profit Recovery cases Maximum Profit Recovery (MPR) have challenged several awards of work packages in the second phase of panel arrangements. In the Umlalazi case the award of the work was successfully challenged on several grounds, including the fact that not all panel members were invited to submit 1 Public infrastructure tenders must comply with CIDB requirements as per the Construction Industry Development Board Act, No. 38 of 2000

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quotations in the second phase and that the work package awarded differed from what was specified in the bid documents. Although MPR’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal in the Naledi case was dismissed on the grounds of mootness, the court did note with approval the municipality’s concession that all the panellists should have been invited to submit quotations for the work package allocated. 4.4.5.3 The correct use of frameworks From the above discussion the municipality seeking to make use of this useful method, which is permitted under current legislation, should ensure: - that the bid documents are clear; - that the functionality requirements are rational; - that the allocation of work during the second phase is clearly defined in the bid documents; and - that the procedures are fair and scrupulously followed. 4.4.6 Emergency procurement under regulation 21 This method is also of great interest to municipal engineers as essential infrastructure can and does break down at the most inopportune times. The regulations do make provision for expedited procurement in cases of emergency. There are however checks and balances to ensure effective use of public funds and to avoid abuse of the system. It should be pointed out that emergency procurement is a valid deviation under the current regulations. Note must be taken of the Auditor-General’s aversion to self-created emergencies so good emergency planning must be able to be demonstrated. 4.4.7 Bid evaluation (regulations 23–25) I emphasised in the discussion of frameworks that the drafting of bid documents must be thorough to avoid challenges to any awards. That is the first step in the journey to good procurement which promotes, rather than hinders, good service delivery. Good evaluation takes time, but poor evaluation wastes time and costs money so the municipality must ensure that the policy is clear, that the bid specifications are clear and rationally connected to the purpose, that any discretion granted e.g. to request missing documents from a bidder is permitted by the policy and bid documents and is fairly and consistently applied. The draft regulations on evaluation will however have to be rewritten due to inconsistencies within the regulations and are therefore not discussed further here. A theme throughout the Act and the regulations is to promote competition. This is anyway a Constitutional imperative and thus the writing and implementation of policies, bid documents and specifications must not have the effect of hindering the entrance into the market of new entrants or emerging suppliers. At the same time the municipality needs to optimally spend scarce resources and requires quality so the promotion of the new entrants and emerging suppliers must be done in a responsible way. Bid evaluation is not a legal process, despite the number of awards that end up in court, but a practical and logical one, so municipal engineers should be given a central role in the development and implementation of the policy, methods and procedures. 4.5 Infrastructure (regulations 37–50) In my 2025 paper I stated optimistically that one of the aspects of the Act that would be warmly welcomed by municipal engineers is the increased focus on the procurement of infrastructure and that this would hopefully speed up service delivery.

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Having read the regulations, I am not sure that it will unblock the flow of service delivery in relation to infrastructure. Much of chapter 4 is devoted to infrastructure and, while there are some good and useful provisions, there are many undefined terms and again various plans and studies required. There is very little practical guidance. To make this useful and workable is going to take a lot of work and take up resources that most municipalities do not have in-house. If the Public Procurement Office is not sufficiently resourced, as feared, consultants will inevitably be widely used. The current Auditor- General’s report has already expressed alarm at the over-use of consultants. Of particular concern is the disconnect, identified by Scott and Sanker, of the regulations with the strategic planning already required of the municipality including the IDP, IDP-aligned budgets and the SDBIP. This is a major weakness as the planning done under the procurement function cannot stand alone. Furthermore, there is little or no alignment with the CIDB which is mandatory for the procurement, creation and maintenance of public infrastructure. A search of both the Act and the regulations reveals that there is only one reference to the CIDB and that is in the Act where it repeals certain sections of the CIDB and writes in other sections which seem to curtail to some extent the powers of the CIDB. It is hoped and expected that the final regulations will be better in terms of their dealing with this vital topic.

5. THE CHALLENGES TO BE ADDRESSED IN THE REVISION OF THE ACT Space precludes a full discussion of the challenges to be addressed so only a brief overview is presented here. 5.1 Strengths to be retained There has been widespread acknowledgement of the efforts of the drafters, and but for the declaration of invalidity, we would now have had a solid foundation on which to build. Some of these are discussed below. 5.1.1 Transparency As Williams points out, corruption is nothing new. Professor Williams cites procurement shenanigans going back to the American Civil War in the 1800s and notes that asymmetry of information is just one of the factors allowing corruption to take place. Transparency is thus an important prevention mechanism. The now invalid Act and the draft regulations were replete with requirements for reporting and public participation which, while adding to the administrative burden of the municipality, would be a very positive step and is to be welcomed, especially in light of the rampant corruption exposed by the Zondo Commission and, more recently by the Madlanga Commission. The Zondo Commission report’s Recommendation 6 emphasised the need for transparency.

evaluation, both of which lead to challenges. Reducing the challenges to procurement decisions will contribute to IMESA’s wish for judiciously reimagined blueprints for effective service delivery. This training does not have to be placed on hold by the delay in the process and the Public Procurement Professional Body Working Group is continuing its efforts to establish a body to improve and regulate the public procurement function. To this end the Working Group has drafted and submitted to National Treasury a chapter for inclusion in the regulations to address the professionalisation of public procurement. If this is accepted, it will go a long way to move the function from a clerical one to a value-adding strategic one. IMESA is urged to support this initiative and to equip its members with the skills to play a vital role not just in the implementation of projects but also in the procurement stage. 5.2 The Challenges These are many but again, space precludes anything more than a superficial overview of the most critical ones. 5.2.1 One-size-fits-all From a municipal perspective this is perhaps the biggest challenge. The draft review of the White Paper on local government notes the variances in capacity within local government and states that a one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective and it notes the need for differentiation. Put more bluntly, a small rural municipality with its meagre resources simply cannot be expected to do the same level of planning, regulation and performance as a metro with significant resources. The regulations need to either ease the burden on the lower capacity municipalities without creating an environment conducive to poor performance and lack of controls or to provide real support to them without infringing on their autonomy. 5.2.2 Financial implications Part 5 of the Memorandum on Objects of Public Procurement Bill, 2023 [sic] envisaged no substantial financial implications for the State. It is however hard to see how the regulations can be implemented without substantial expenditure. There will be significant training costs and there is no indication that the Public Procurement Office will fund the training. The strategic plans and market analyses required by regulation 4 will take considerable work as will the new procurement policies. The preferential procurement requirements of chapter 5, which have not been discussed in this paper, will arguably result in direct premiums being paid by the municipality. While the need for preferences is not questioned, it must be acknowledged that these come at a price.

5.1.2 Promotion of planning The regulations require strategic and operational planning to be done. While this is to be welcomed it does place an additional burden on the local government sector already struggling to comply with the onerous reporting burdens placed on it. It is hoped that the reset allows time to increase the capacity of support bodies such as the PPO to ease the burden on already stressed municipalities.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS ON WHAT TO DO NOW 6.1 Interim period After the invalidity declaration and the falling away of the draft regulations the preparation for the transition to the new legislative framework has been put on hold and SCM continues as before. Pro-active municipalities will however not be passive but will actively prepare for the delayed transition. During this time procurement will continue with the current procurement policies in place. The exercise of critically analysing the Act and draft regulations can be a valuable planning tool to incrementally improve municipal procurement.

5.1.3 Upskilling and support The proposed training of procurement practitioners and bid committee members will help to improve the quality of bid documents and bid

6.2 Some of the regulations which are valid under current legislation can be phased in As stated earlier there are a number of provisions which can be phased

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in to improve the current SCM performance. These include: training and professionalisation of the SCM practitioners and the integration of trained technical staff into the SCM function, training of Bid Committees, especially the Bid Specification Committee which is the foundation of good procurement, the correct use of framework agreements, tightening up on emergency procurement, development of a strategic procurement plan and start incorporating AI under guidance to avoid spurious results. 6.2 The municipality engineer’s role Almost all the regulations relevant to the practical aspects of public procurement refer to the procurement or require provision to be made in the procurement policy. The procurement function will in most cases be responsible for the drafting of the policy. However, a well drafted policy will have to include the inputs of the user departments as well and one of the main users are the various engineering functions. The draft CIDB regulations should be studied and adopted where appropriate. To ensure a well-drafted policy is finally adopted the municipal engineers need to make themselves heard and use every avenue to participate in the formulation of the policy to avoid it becoming just another roadblock to service delivery. REFERENCES Author’s note on the use of AI: I have used Claude, Lexis+ Protégé and the Sabinet Research Assistant to assist in research. I hereby confirm that I did not copy and paste any of the AI output into this paper and I also confirm that I verified all information provided by AI by referring directly to the source documents referenced by the AI. The actual writing is all my own work. APLU. 2026. Webinar series on the draft South African Public Procurement regulations. Available: https://africanprocurementlaw.org/2026/04/29/ webinar-series-on-draft-south-african-public-procurement-regulations/ Allpay Consolidated Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Others v Chief Executive Officer of the South African Social Security Agency and Others [2013] ZACC 42; 2014 (1) SA 604 (CC); 2014 (1) BCLR 1 (CC) Reported case law. Allpay Consolidated Investment Holdings (Pty) Ltd and Others v Chief Executive Officer of the South African Social Security Agency and Others (2014 (1) SA 604 (CC); 2014 (1) BCLR 1 (CC)) [2013] ZACC 51; [2013] ZACC 42 (29 November 2013) Reported case law. Anthony, A.M. 2020. South African infrastructure procurement under the new Public Procurement Bill. African Public Procurement Law Journal, 7(1): 26–33. Barclay, C. 2026. The Public Procurement Act is Invalid: A Second Chance for Infrastructure and PPP Regulation. Available at: https://www.linkedin. com/posts/impact-of-an-invalid- public-procurement-act-ugcPost7507832455731785730-E_M4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ desktop&rcm=ACoAAANreCEBiP3ECxGiAapYS1mY5Wus2QvXay8 [Accessed: 22 September 2026]. Construction Industry Development Board. 2026. Draft Standard for Uniformity in Construction Procurement Government. Government Gazette, No. 55046 of 24 July 2026, Notice 963 of 2026. JK Structures CC v City of Cape Town and Others (leave to appeal) (14485 / 2021) [2023] ZAWCHC 93 (8 May 2023) Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture Report: Part 1 Available: https://www.statecapture.org.za/site/files/announcements/673/OCR_ version_-_State_Capture_Commission_Report_Part_1_Vol_I.pdf Maximum Profit Recovery (Pty) Ltd v Naledi Local Municipality & Others (340/2024) [2025] ZASCA 83 (10 June 2025)

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Maximum Profit Recovery (Pty) Ltd v Umlalazi Municipality and Others (17686/23P) [2024] ZAKZPHC 100 (11 November 2024) Mogale and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others (CCT 73/22) [2023] ZACC 14; 2023 (9) BCLR 1099 (CC); 2023 (6) SA 58 (CC) (30 May 2023) Premier of the Western Cape Government and Another v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others; City of Cape Town and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others [2026] ZACC 37 Republic of South Africa. 1996. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 Republic of South Africa. 1999. Public Finance Management Act, No. 1 of 1999 Republic of South Africa. 2003. Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act, No. 53 of 2003 Republic of South Africa. 2000. Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, No. 5 of 2000 Republic of South Africa. 2000. Construction Industry Development Board Act, No. 38 of 2000 Republic of South Africa. 2000. Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, No. 3 of 2000 Republic of South Africa. 2023. Memorandum on objects of Public Procurement Bill, 2023. Available at: https://www.treasury.gov.za/ public%20comments/DPPB2023/Public%20Procurement%20Bill%20-%20 to%20OCSLA%20F.pdf [Accessed 01 July 2026]. Republic of South Africa. 2024. Public Procurement Act, No. 28 of 2024 Republic of South Africa. 2026. Draft General Public Procurement Regulations, 2026 Republic of South Africa. 2026. Review of the White Paper on Local Government – Government Gazette No. 54630 7 May 2025 Available: https:// www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202605/54630gon7457.pdf Accessed 02 July 2026. Republic of South Africa. 2026. The Minister of Finance has noted and respects the judgment of the Constitutional Court. Ministry of Finance media statement. Available at: https://www.treasury.gov.za/comm_media/ press/2026/2026091701%20MEDIA%20STATEMENT-THE%20MINISTER%20 OF%20FINANCE%20HAS%20NOTED%20AND%20RESPECTS%20THE%20 JUDGEMENT%20OF%20THE%20CONSTITUTIONAL%20COURT.pdf [Accessed 19 September 2026]. SA Veterinary Association v Speaker of the National Assembly [2018] ZACC 49; 2019 (2) BCLR 273 (CC); 2019 (3) SA 62 (CC) Schrieber, S. 2026. 16 years’ work: Treasury starts again as court undoes tender laws. Available at: https://www.businessday.co.za/news/law/2026-09-18back-to-square-one-says-godongwana-after-losing-procurement-case/ [Accessed: 19 September 2026]. Scott, S & Sanker, J. 2026. Critique of Regulation 4: Promotion of Strategic Procurement. Presentation to the Public Sector SCM Collaboration platform Tekoa Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd v Alfred Nzo District Municipality and others, [2025] JOL 70152 (SCA) United Nations. 2011. UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement. Volmink, P. 2022. Deviations and variations in South African public procurement [A note on SCM Instruction 3 of 2021/22]. African Public Procurement Law Journal, 9: 52. Wilcock, C. 2025. Sustainable engineering solutions need an effective public procurement system – will the new public procurement act have a positive effect on municipal procurement? Proceedings of the 2025 IMESA Conference. Williams, S. 2022. Corruption in Public Procurement: The Links and Solutions. Available at: https://blogs.sun.ac.za/law/files/2022/08/Sope-WilliamsPresentation.pdf [Accessed 01 July 2026]

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PAPER 13

A DISCUSSION ON THE APPLICATION OF RECYCLED CONCRETE AGGREGATE IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Rapheal Bamisaye, Elaine S. Goosen and Adewumi J. Babafemi Department of Civil Engineering, Stellenbosch University

ABSTRACT Civil infrastructure demands substantial quantities of natural aggregate, whose availability is increasingly challenged by depletion and by the environmental effects of its extraction and use. In response to these concerns, the use of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) from construction and demolition waste has been gaining popularity in civil infrastructure. Despite considerable research, issues of variability, uncertain performance, and a lack of guidelines for characterisation and design continue to constrain the adoption of RCA. This review presents a comprehensive overview of the available data on the known engineering properties of RCA in comparison with natural aggregate. RCA utilisation is discussed with reference to civil engineering applications. RCA is being used in unbound granular pavement layers, and to a lesser extent in bound layers. Beyond pavement applications, successful use of RCA has been reported in structural concrete, embankments, backfills and drainage systems. The available local and international literature suggests that, in controlled trials, RCA can achieve satisfactory performance across a range of applications; however, it is generally regarded as a cost-effective material for nonspecialised applications and is not commonly used in high-value or critical applications. RCA use can also be viewed in the context of recycling, downcycling and upcycling. Much of the RCA in use is currently downcycled, particularly in unbound applications such as subbases, base courses and low-grade fill. True recycling, by contrast, occurs when the performance properties of the material are identical or very similar to those of natural aggregate. There is emerging potential to upscale the use of RCA in higher-value applications, where both performance and durability can be optimised by beneficiation techniques such as surface treatment to meet specific construction criteria. The sustainability benefit of RCA therefore rests not on its use alone, but on how well the material retains its original value across its lifecycle. This paper highlights the need for a performance-based design framework that accounts for material variability and the associated performance uncertainties, to enable the safe and reliable application of RCA in the built environment in South Africa. 1. INTRODUCTION The construction sector is one of the most resource-intensive industries in the world, consuming vast quantities of natural aggregate and generating roughly one-third of all solid waste (Akhtar & Sarmah 2018). Official national statistics indicate that 4.48 Mt of construction and demolition wastes (C&DW) was delivered to disposal sites in 2017, though

independent estimates for the same year reveal much higher figures of of 10.8 Megatonnes (Mt) via a per-capita multiplier method and 20.2 Mt via material-lifetime analysis (Berge et al., 2022). The discrepancy, a factor of two to five, reflects the informal waste-management practices typical of developing economies, but it also reflects a systemic absence of measurement effort (De Villiers et al. 2024). What is not measured is not managed. The pressure is now immediate. However, Amadi & Mahachi 2025 state that landfilling is still the primary disposal option for C&DW in South Africa and the big metropolitan landfills that serve Johannesburg and Cape Town have less than five years of available airspace remaining. The country is running out of space with the model of disposal it relies on. RCA reduces C&DW volumes going to landfill and simultaneously reduces demand for quarried virgin aggregate. Ohemeng & Ekolu 2020 found that producing one tonne of coarse RCA costs around 40% less than an equivalent tonne of natural aggregate, with an environmental benefit approximately 97% higher. Even so, local adoption remains minimal. The reasons include technical uncertainty about RCA’s variable properties(Bester et al. 2017), the complete absence of South African national standards that would give engineers a specification basis (Gebremariam et al. 2025), and poor supply-chain visibility (Silva et al. 2017). The case for RCA must be made with a clear sense of scale. Even at full recovery, the C&DW generated locally, estimated at 12.2 to 24.3 Mt each year, is modest against the roughly 77.9 Mt of coarse and fine aggregate that South Africa’s construction sector consumes annually (De Villiers et al. 2024). RCA is therefore not a wholesale substitute for natural aggregate and presenting it as one would overstate the case. Its value lies instead in targeted, well-specified use that directs a reliable waste stream into the applications where it performs well and where the diverted volumes make a real reduction in landfill pressure. The obstacle to that targeted use is not the underlying technology, which is well established internationally, but the absence of a local framework for applying it. South Africa has no national standard for RCA, no agreed test methodology and no consolidated evidence base, so a practising engineer has no defensible basis on which to specify the material, however sound the global case. This review sets out to close that gap. It draws the scattered evidence together under four themes. These are material properties and variability (including latent cement content); beneficiation methods and their local viability; performance in structural concrete and in pavement layers; and the life-cycle cost and carbon case. A short policy and research agenda closes the paper.

2. MATERIAL PROPERTIES, VARIABILITY AND LATENT CEMENT CONTENT 2.1 Disparity between RCA and natural aggregate RCA differs from natural aggregate not merely in origin but in structure.

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A layer of old hardened cement paste, the adhered mortar (AM), remains bonded to each aggregate particle after crushing. This mortar is porous, absorptive and weaker than the underlying original aggregate, which raises water absorption and lowers specific gravity and density. The effects cascade through the concrete mix, so that workability drops, strength is reduced, shrinkage increases and durability is compromised (Behera et al. 2014). Two interfacial transition zones (ITZ) define the structural weak points of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC), one between the original aggregate and the adhered mortar, and a second between the old mortar and the new cement paste Figure 1. Both are more porous than in conventional concrete, and both are crack-initiation sites under load (Alibeigibeni et al. 2025). The size and density of the AM layer depends on parent concrete strength, the crushing method, and recycling history (Bai et al. 2020).

FIGURE 1: Schematic of a recycled concrete aggregate particle showing the adhered mortar and the dual interfacial transition zone (after Fanijo et al. 2023) Parent concrete grade is particularly important. Gholampour & Ozbakkaloglu 2018 showed that the use of RCA from a parent concrete of 110 MPa produced RAC with long-term qualities comparable to those of standard concrete. Gebremariam et al. 2024 further verified this trend on a broader scale, indicating that RAC obtained from high-strength parent concrete (≥80 MPa) can perform equally or better than conventional concrete, while source material of lower strength leads to RCA with more pronounced AM-related deficiencies. This is directly relevant to South African conditions, where the country’s building stock includes structures built under widely varying specifications, with pre-1990s construction typically in the range of 20–30 MPa based on mix design practices of the era. Demolition of this older stock will yield lower-grade RCA, and specifications written for South Africa should account for this rather than importing thresholds derived from high-strength European demolition waste. 2.2 Variability: the critical challenge for South African conditions Variability, not any single material deficiency, is what makes RCA hardest to specify in practice.

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Unlike quarried aggregate, RCA can vary substantially between demolition sites, and even within a single consignment where selective demolition was not practised. Global evidence on within-batch variability is instructive, although the findings are not uniform. Pacheco et al. 2019 found that full replacement of natural aggregate with RCA did not increase compressive strength variability beyond what is normal for natural aggregate concrete (NAC), but the intermediate replacement ratios, around 50%, introduced more variability than either extreme. The mechanism is blending, whereby partially absorptive RCA particles mixed with non-absorptive natural aggregate create heterogeneous effective water-to-binder ratios that neither all-RCA nor all-natural mixes experience. Gaurav et al. 2023 showed that the appropriate statistical distribution for RAC compressive strength changes with curing age and replacement level, with Weibull models outperforming normal distributions for high-replacement mixes at early age. In South Africa, variability is compounded by non-selective demolition practices, which crush structural concrete together with masonry, plaster, ceramic tiles, and asphalt. This produces highly heterogeneous fine fractions that downstream processing cannot rectify. For instance, attempting to manage this erratic material through pre-soaking (a common strategy for beneficiation) backfires, as the highly porous plaster and brick contaminants trap excess water, leading to a significant deterioration in both fresh and cured properties (Bester et al. 2017). The study concludes that recycled fine aggregate carries much greater negative impact than coarse in the South African C&DW context, and that the pre-soaking procedure for fine fractions warrants special attention. The quality thresholds and beneficiation methods discussed later in Section 3 apply primarily to coarse RCA. Fine RCA from mixed South African demolition waste presents additional challenges that are directly relevant to the block and paver applications detailed in Section 4.1 as the most accessible near-term structural entry point, and a separate process specification for fine RCA is needed for the housing and low-cost construction sector. 2.3 Latent Cement Content: an under-examined variable One property of RCA that receives less attention than it warrants is Latent Cement Content (LCC). Partially hydrated and unhydrated cement particles, primarily dicalcium silicate (C2S), remain embedded within the adhered

FIGURE 2: Progressive stiffness gain of recycled concrete aggregate with curing time, driven by latent cement content ( after Wang et al. 2024)

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mortar. When wetted or compacted, as in pavement base layers, these particles reactivate, and the RCA layer gains strength over time through self-cementation. Jitsangiam et al. 2015 reported this through XRD and SEM analysis, showing that high-grade RCA samples transformed from unbound material into effectively stabilised material over varying curing periods. Wang et al. 2023 linked self-cementing intensity directly to pavement resilience. Wang et al. 2024 tracked microstructural improvement over 720 days and showed that RCA sub-base and base layers progressively stiffen without any cement addition (Figure 2), a significant cost advantage for large-volume road construction. For South African pavement management, that 720-day window, roughly two years of service, implies that conservative designopening moduli should be specified, with a scheduled condition survey at 24 months to verify and record the stiffness gained in service. Cheng et al. 2024 found that severe re-cementation in 13-year-old inservice pavements produced strength comparable to cement-treated base but also increased the probability of reflective cracking. South African pavement design guidelines will need to incorporate this phenomenon explicitly. South Africa has an early domestic literature on self-cementation in C&DW materials. Paige-Green (2010) conducted a preliminary study of selfcementation in recyclable cementitious materials within the South African road network, finding meaningful self-cementing potential in demolition waste and stabilised road materials while flagging the risk of overstabilisation. The most substantial South African work is that of Rudman, whose laboratory programme on RCA and masonry C&DW (Rudman & Jenkins 2015) culminated in a doctoral dissertation on the self-cementation of RCA in roads (Rudman 2019). That body of work established, through X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and unconfined compression, monotonic and cyclic testing, that residual dicalcium silicate (C2S) in the fine fraction and adhered mortar is the primary origin of self-cementation, that pH is a workable indicator of self-cementing potential, and that conventional short-term testing without curing substantially underestimates structural capacity.

3. BENEFICIATION: METHODS WITH LOCAL APPLICABILITY There are two approaches to solve the adhered mortar problem, either by removing the mortar or by densifying it. The whole spectrum of methodologies has been assessed for both strategies by Tam et al. 2021 and Shi et al. 2016. The critical question for South Africa is not which method is theoretically best but which is scalable and commercially viable locally. Table 1 compares the four principal approaches. Two stand out for nearterm applicability, namely accelerated carbonation and the incorporation of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).

Accelerated carbonation improves aggregate quality and sequesters CO₂ at the same time. CO₂ reacts with calcium hydroxide and calcium silicate hydrate in the mortar to generate thick calcium carbonate, filling the pores and strengthening the top layer (Behera et al. 2014). Zhan et al 2020 confirmed through XRD, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) that carbonation improves both interfacial zone (ITZ) microhardness and the bond strength between treated RCA and fresh cement paste. As noted in Section 3.3, carbonation reacts with unhydrated cement phases as well as calcium hydroxide, so latent cement content (LCC) acts as an active reactant, and RCA with higher LCC benefits proportionally more from carbonation, which makes a strong case for characterising LCC before any investment in carbonation processing capacity. Pu et al. 2023 compared carbonated RCA against traditional two-stage crushing and heating treatment using life cycle assessment (LCA) and found lower energy demand and environmental impact for carbonation across all categories. Industrial CO₂ is potentially available from Sasol’s synthetic fuels operations and from certain steel-processing facilities in South Africa, although the logistics and cost of supplying CO₂ to RCA processing plants have not yet been established in published South African literature. SCM incorporation, the addition of fly ash, ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS) or silica fume to RCA, improves ITZ quality from the binder side without modifying the aggregate. Qureshi et al. 2020 showed that the combination usage of SCM and steel fibre significantly enhanced strength and durability. The mechanism is two-fold: a pozzolanic reaction in which the reactive silica and alumina in fly ash, GGBS or silica fumes consumes the calcium hydroxide that concentrates at the ITZ during cement hydration, converting it into additional calcium-silicate-hydrate gel, combined with a physical filler effect in which the fine SCM particles pack into the ITZ pore structure and block capillary pathways. Together these densify the ITZ and reduce its permeability, which is the basis for the strength and durability gains measured (Qureshi et al., 2020). The commercial viability of SCM-enhanced RAC is clear because both fly ash and GGBS are available as industrial by-products in South Africa. SCM incorporation requires no capital investment in aggregate processing plant and is the appropriate starting point for early-market adoption. Mechanical abrasion and acid pre-soaking are technically effective globally but face practical constraints in South Africa. Savva et al. 2021 identified an optimal three-hour abrasion treatment window requiring process control and plant investment that South Africa’s nascent RCA industry cannot yet support at scale. Acid pre-soaking (Ouyang et al. 2020, Tam et al. 2007) requires chemical handling infrastructure that the local regulatory environment makes commercially difficult. Both methods are viable for research and quality-improvement trials but are unlikely nearterm commercial pathways.

TABLE 1: Beneficiation methods: a comparative assessment for South African conditions Method

Mortar reduction

Water absorption reduction

Strength improvement

Local scalability (SA)

Source

Drum abrasion

High (~40%)

Moderate

Low — plant investment required; processcontrol demanding

Shi et al. 2016; Savva et al. 2021

Acid pre-soaking

Moderate

High (avg. 24.5%)

Moderate

Low — chemical handling/disposal constraints in SA context

Tam et al. 2007; Ouyang et al. 2020

Accelerated carbonation

Moderate (densification)

High; amplified by LCC

High; sequesters CO₂

Medium — potentially viable where CO₂ and throughput available; SA logistics unestablished

Zhan et al. 2020; Pu et al. 2023

SCM incorporation

N/A (binder-side)

N/A (ITZ improvement)

High (durability)

High — fly ash and GGBS available domestically; no plant required; lowest entry barrier

Qureshi et al. 2020

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Carbonation and SCM incorporation address different parts of the problem and are complementary. The most pragmatic near-term approach is SCM incorporation at the mix-design stage, with carbonation treatment held as a medium-term investment once processing scale develops.

4. APPLICATIONS IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT 4.1 Structural concrete The most consistent finding in the structural concrete literature is that up to 20–30% replacement of natural aggregate with RCA has no statistically significant effect on compressive strength, provided the RCA meets basic quality thresholds. Thomas et al. 2018 established this range across both strength and durability testing. Kazmi & Lu 2024 reviewed evidence from multiple countries across mechanical performance, economic outcomes, and national standards and found that 20% is the replacement ratio that consistently balanced all three and should serve as the default starting point for national standards in countries lacking local data. At above 30% the strength drops are more predictable, but can be compensated by adjustment of the water to binder ratio, use of SCMs or pre-treatment. At the level of the structural member, Deresa et al. 2020 reviewed experimental results of reinforced RAC beams and columns and found structural performance comparable to or marginally below NAC equivalents for flexure, shear and seismic loading i.e. the conservative end of existing structural design approaches can accommodate RCA without fundamental revision. The 20% level indicates a quality requirement. Thomas et al 2018 and Kazmi et al. 2024 both use the figure for RCA that satisfy particular requirements, that is, water absorption below 5% and Los Angeles abrasion loss below 40%. These thresholds should be specified and verified at the source-qualification stage, with batch re-testing for large or extended contracts. Where RCA does not meet them, the replacement ratio should be reduced to 10–15% and SCM enhancement applied to compensate. Given South Africa’s mixed-waste demolition practice, this lower-grade case may be common rather than exceptional. This is consistent with, not contradictory to, the variability evidence in Section 2.2, as Pacheco et al. 2019 address statistical spread at a given replacement ratio, whereas this 20% figure addresses mean strength retention conditioned on source quality (Section 2.1), and is a conservative default for unverified or mixedquality RCA rather than a ceiling on RCA performance generally. Fine RCA from South African demolition waste raises additional considerations. As noted in Section 2.2, pre-soaking fine RCA fractions introduces excess water and degrades concrete properties (Bester et al. 2017), so recycled fine aggregate carries a greater penalty than coarse RCA. Low-cost housing and block or paver production, identified as the most accessible near-term structural entry point (Olubambi et al. 2025), nonetheless depend on fine fractions. Simon et al. 2025, in a South African review of low-strength concrete bricks and blocks, report evidence from international studies that fine and coarse aggregate replacement at around 25% and 50% respectively has little impact on compressive strength, with higher coarse replacement levels reducing strength unless compensated by increased cement content, fine-aggregate adjustment, or improved curing, figures obtained without any RCA pretreatment. They also note that masonry content in the recycled fraction can raise later-age strength through further hydration of residual cement, a direct, product-scale expression of the latent cement effect discussed in Section 2.3, and report RCA at roughly 10% below the cost of virgin material in the Cape Town market. The block and paver route is therefore promising, but specifiers should not assume that performance data for coarse RCA transfers directly to it, and a parallel process specification for fine RCA does not yet

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exist in South Africa. The 20% coarse RCA threshold is well supported, but it is meaningful only when paired with minimum quality verification and explicit guidance on what to do when the thresholds are not met. 4.2 Pavement and road construction Road construction is the most appropriate near-term entry point for large-volume RCA use in South Africa. Pavement sub-base and base layers (Figure 3) are subject to quality-control requirements that scale with road category, as high-category and national roads apply stringent control with little tolerance for variability, while lower-category roads permit more. RCA is therefore more plausibly suited to lower-category roads than national roads, though firmer category-specific recommendations require more local variability data than currently exists. Where conditions permit its use, subbase and base layers are where LCC transitions from a design uncertainty into a performance advantage.

FIGURE 3: Typical flexible pavement structure, indicating the base and sub-base layers suited to recycled concrete aggregate The global pavement evidence is consistent and now spans review, mechanism and field scales. At review level, Fanijo et al. 2023 and Khan et al. 2024 found RCA suitable across all pavement layer types and confirmed adequate california bearing ratioio (CBR), compressive strength and resilient modulus against typical road specifications in multiple jurisdictions, with performance closely tied to production method and mortar content. The mechanism behind that performance is the self-cementing stiffening documented by Wang et al. 2024, whose RCA sub-base and base layers reached resilience comparable to lightly stabilised materials over 720day curing without any cement addition. Field studies then confirm the laboratory trend. Pouranian et al. 2025 reported a Florida DOT programme in which RCA outperformed standard lime rock base on deflection, rutting resistance, smoothness and ride quality over several years. The evidence converges on a single conclusion, that where self-cementing RCA is used in base and sub-base layers, long-term performance exceeds openingcondition predictions. The only South African testing that directly addresses pavement specification is Pitso et al. 2024, which evaluated RCA from local demolition sources against the G5 classification. The results were positive, with RCA

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performing adequately as an unbound material and cement addition at 2–3% producing results suitable for treated layers. This is laboratory-based and drawn from a limited range of sources, so it is a starting point rather than a standard. Rudman’s doctoral work (Rudman 2019) provides the local experimental evidence for self-cementation behaviour in roads, but its geographic scope is narrow, and the phenomenon remains systematically uncharacterised across South Africa’s demolition stock and climate zones. Cheng et al. 2024 observation on reflective cracking risk from severe recementation warrants explicit attention in South African design practice. Incorporating LCC-informed design assumptions from the outset, rather than retrofitting after anomalies appear, requires long-term field trials across South Africa’s climate zones.

5. COST AND LIFE-CYCLE EVIDENCE The economic case for RCA in South Africa rests on a thin evidence base. Ohemeng & Ekolu 2020, the most directly applicable local cost analysis, found the long-term production cost of coarse RCA to be approximately 40% below that of natural aggregate, with a per-tonne environmental benefit roughly 97% higher. These figures derive from a single study and should be read as indicative rather than settled. The important qualification is that the net financial benefit of RCA production in isolation is negative, because revenue from RCA sales alone does not cover production costs once landfill-avoidance savings and reduced haulage are excluded. The market will not solve the adoption problem on its own, as the signal requires a policy-created incentive, such as landfill pricing, a procurement requirement or carbon pricing, each a lever within government’s direct control. The life-cycle evidence is more consistent, with two variables to decide whether recycled aggregate concrete has a net environmental advantage: transport distance and cement content. Where the demolition source and the new project are close, the carbon savings are real (Visintin et al. 2020), a condition South Africa’s metropolitan areas generally satisfy. Cement dominates the carbon footprint regardless of aggregate type, and Sabău et al. 2021 found that replacing 25% of cement with fly ash cut emissions by up to 17%, a benefit additive to RCA rather than an alternative. However, two cautions apply to these life cycle claims. First, Hasheminezhad et al. 2024 showed the choice of functional unit (volumetric, gravimetric or performance-adjusted) materially changes the outcome, with performanceadjusted comparisons the more defensible. Second, Zhang et al. 2019 noted that CO₂ uptake through natural carbonation is routinely omitted, so published figures are likely conservative. The environmental case for urban-proximate, SCM-enhanced RCA is therefore well supported, while the financial case depends on policy activation. Both point to the same binding constraint as the absence of government-level intervention, in the form of national standards, procurement requirements or pricing instruments such as landfill levies or carbon pricing, rather than a lack of informal best-practice guidance, as the obstacle to widespread adoption. This is consistent with international evidence that stardadization and government intervention, rather than technical readiness, are what drive recycled-aggregate market development (Gebremariam et al. 2025, Silva et al. 2017). 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This paper has reviewed the state and potential of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) in the South African built environment. Three contributions follow from the synthesis. First, it explicitly links latent cement content (LCC) characterisation, carbonation treatment potential and pavement design uncertainty. Second, the beneficiation comparison in Table 1 frames method

selection against local scalability rather than laboratory performance, a distinction that matters for practitioners who cannot import European processing infrastructure. Third, it establishes that the binding constraint on RCA adoption in South Africa is regulatory rather than technical. The technical case for RCA is largely established. The 20% figure is a conservative default for RCA of unverified or mixed source quality, which is the typical South African case as it is not a ceiling on RCA performance in general, since RCA derived from high-strength, well-characterised parent concrete has been shown to sustain full or near-full replacement without performance loss (Section 2.1). Coarse RCA can replace up to 20% of natural aggregate in structural concrete with no significant loss of strength where the quality thresholds are met, namely water absorption below 5% and Los Angeles abrasion loss below 40%, and where they are not, the replacement ratio should drop to 10-15% with supplementary cementitious material compensation. For pavement sub-base and base layers, the G5 results of Pitso et al. 2024 provide a starting basis, subject to the long-term field performance data that does not yet exist. A parallel specification for fine RCA, relevant to the housing and block or paver sector, is also needed. Despite this technical readiness, local adoption remains minimal, and the underlying material is not the limiting factor. What this review cannot resolve, on the available evidence, is whether the binding constraint is regulatory in a strict sense, that is, the absence of national standards, specifications and policy instruments, or whether it is engineers’ risk-averse response to that absence, that is, a reluctance to specify RCA in the absence of guidelines against which to defend a design decision. The two are difficult to separate in practice, since the absence of standards is plausibly what sustains the perception of risk: without a specification basis, an engineer has no defensible benchmark against which to qualify RCA, regardless of how the material itself performs. South Africa has no dedicated national standard governing RCA use in either structural concrete or pavements. International experience is consistent on this point, that standardisation and government intervention, not technical readiness, drive recycledaggregate market development Silva et al. 2017, and developing countries need locally calibrated standards rather than the direct adoption of European norms (Gebremariam et al. 2025). The technical knowledge base for a first-generation South African standard is substantially established in the global literature. Integrating RCA into the built environment requires design blueprints to be reimagined judiciously. Furthermore, scaling its use in South Africa demands that procurement standards and specifications originally written for conventional materials be carefully adapted for wellcharacterized alternative materials. On this basis, the following recommendations are offered, ordered by their effect on adoption. Standards development is first-order as the others either enable the standard or create the demand that makes investment in RCA supply chains rational. 1. Develop best-practice guidelines and SANS standards for the use of RCA in specific applications of the built environment. 2. Incentivize RCA use in public road construction. Rather than a procurement mandate, which would be difficult to enforce given inconsistent local RCA availability and quality, incentives such as preferential tender scoring, tax relief or rebates for contractors who use a specified minimum percentage of unbound sub-base aggregate as RCA, where locally available, would create the demand signal that commercial supply currently lack, a softer version of the mechanism by which several European countries seeded their recycled-aggregate markets (Silva et al. 2017). 3. Monitored road pavements trials spanning 5 to 10 years across diverse climatic zones, capturing the wet, dry, and moderate regions that

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characterise the South African context are essential to generate the empirical performance data conservative design engineers require. 4. Systematically characterise LCC and variability in South African demolition concrete. Sampling demolition sites across major metropolitan areas, building eras, and structural types would resolve the central design uncertainty identified in this review and determine the feasibility and consistency of carbonation treatment for South African RCA. 5. Reform construction and demolition waste data collection. A mandatory C&DW audit on demolition permits, requiring the separation, weighing and reporting of concrete, masonry and other fractions, would close the two- to fivefold gap between official disposal statistics and actual volumes within a few years.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work is based on research supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant Number: TTK250305301363), through the project led by Dr. E.S. Goosen (Principal Investigator). REFERENCES Abedin Khan, Z., Balunaini, U., Costa, S., & Nguyen, N. H. T. (2024). A review on sustainable use of recycled construction and demolition waste aggregates in pavement base and subbase layers. Cleaner Materials, 13. Akhtar, A., & Sarmah, A. K. (2018). Construction and demolition waste generation and properties of recycled aggregate concrete: A global perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 186, 262–281. Alibeigibeni, A., Stochino, F., Zucca, M., & Gayarre, F. L. (2025). Enhancing Concrete Sustainability: A Critical Review of the Performance of Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCAs) in Structural Concrete. Buildings 2025, Vol. 15, 15(8). Amadi, I. G., & Mahachi, J. (2025). State-of-the-art review on construction and demolition waste: The South African context. Cleaner Waste Systems, 11, 100251. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CLWAS.2025.100251 Bai, G., Zhu, C., Liu, C., & Liu, B. (2020). An evaluation of the recycled aggregate characteristics and the recycled aggregate concrete mechanical properties. Construction and Building Materials, 240, 117978. Behera, M., Bhattacharyya, S. K., Minocha, A. K., Deoliya, R., & Maiti, S. (2014). Recycled aggregate from C&D waste & its use in concrete – A breakthrough towards sustainability in construction sector: A review. Construction and Building Materials, 68, 501–516. Berge, S., von Blottnitz, H., Blottnitz An, V. H., & Inggs, M. (2022). An estimate of construction and demolition waste quantities and composition expected in South Africa. South African Journal of Science, 118(SPE), 1–5. Bester, J., Kruger, D., & Miller, B. (2017). South African construction and demolition waste procedure and its sourced material effects on concrete. MATEC Web of Conferences, 120, 02008. Cheng, H., Wang, Y., Liu, J., Poon, C. S., Ren, P., Liu, Y., & Chen, Z. (2024). The long-term re-cementation of recycled concrete aggregate in road sub-base and its impacts on pavement performance. Transportation Geotechnics, 49, 101431. De Villiers, W., Mwongo, M., Babafemi, A. J., & Van Zijl, G. (2024). Quantifying Recycled Construction and Demolition Waste for Use in 3D-Printed Concrete. Recycling 2024, Vol. 9, Page 55, 9(4), 55. Deresa, S. T., Xu, J., Demartino, C., Heo, Y. A., Li, Z., & Xiao, Y. (2020). A review of experimental results on structural performance of reinforced recycled aggregate concrete beams and columns. Advances in Structural Engineering, 23(15), 3351–3369. Fanijo, E. O., Kolawole, J. T., Babafemi, A. J., & Liu, J. (2023). A comprehensive review on the use of recycled concrete aggregate for pavement

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construction: Properties, performance, and sustainability. Cleaner Materials, 9. Gaurav, G., Kotoky, N., Jittin, V., & Bahurudeen, A. (2023). Performance assessment of recycled aggregate concrete and its variability. Structural Concrete, 24(5), 6239–6250. Gebremariam, H. G., Taye, S., & Tarekegn, A. G. (2024). Parent Concrete Strength Effects on the Quality of Recycled Aggregate Concrete: A Review. Heliyon, 10(4), e26212. Gebremariam, H. G., Taye, S., Tarekegn, A. G., & Woldesenbet, A. (2025). REVOLUTIONIZING SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION THROUGH RECYCLED CONCRETE AGGREGATE PRODUCTION: A SYSTEMIC REVIEW OF CODES, STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES. Journal of Civil Engineering, Science and Technology, 16(1), 102–118. https://doi.org/10.33736/JCEST.6847.2025 Gholampour, A., & Ozbakkaloglu, T. (2018). Time-dependent and long-term mechanical properties of concretes incorporating different grades of coarse recycled concrete aggregates. Engineering Structures, 157, 224– 234. Hasheminezhad, A., King, D., Ceylan, H., & Kim, S. (2024). Comparative life cycle assessment of natural and recycled aggregate concrete: A review. Science of the Total Environment, 950. Jitsangiam, P., Boonserm, K., Phenrat, T., Chummuneerat, S., Chindaprasirt, P., & Nikraz, H. (2015). Recycled Concrete Aggregates in Roadways: Laboratory Examination of Self-Cementing Characteristics. Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 27(10). Kazmi, S., & Lu, L. (2024). Optimal Replacement Ratio of Recycled Concrete Aggregate Balancing Mechanical Performance with Sustainability: A Review. Buildings 2024, Vol. 14, Page 2204, 14(7), 2204. Ohemeng, E. A., & Ekolu, S. O. (2020). Comparative analysis on costs and benefits of producing natural and recycled concrete aggregates: A South African case study. Case Studies in Construction Materials, 13. Olubambi, A., Akinradewo, O., Aigbavboa, C., & Ikotun, B. (2025). Quantitative Evaluation of Sustainable Construction and Demolition Waste Management System Performance in South Africa. Infrastructures 2025, Vol. 10, Page 150, 10(6), 150. Ouyang, K., Shi, C., Chu, H., Guo, H., Song, B., Ding, Y., Guan, X., Zhu, J., Zhang, H., Wang, Y., & Zheng, J. (2020). An overview on the efficiency of different pretreatment techniques for recycled concrete aggregate. Journal of Cleaner Production, 263. Pacheco, J., de Brito, J., Chastre, C., & Evangelista, L. (2019). Experimental investigation on the variability of the main mechanical properties of concrete produced with coarse recycled concrete aggregates. Construction and Building Materials, 201, 110–120. Paige-Green, P. (2010). Preliminary evaluation of the reuse of cementitious materials. In SATC 2010 (Number August). Document Transformation Technologies. Pitso, R. I., Mostafa, M. M. H., & Elsaigh, W. A. (2024). Incorporation of Recycled Concrete Aggregates as Road Pavement Material in South Africa. International Journal of Pavement Research and Technology 2024 19:1, 19(1), 199–207. Pouranian, M. R., Beaudoin de Roca, Y., Jeong, J., Kwon, O., & Holzschuher, C. (2025). Long-Term Performance Evaluation of Recycled Concrete Aggregate as a Base Material in Flexible Pavements. Transportation Research Record, 2679(10), 218–230. Pu, Y., Li, L., Shi, X., Wang, Q., & Abomohra, A. (2023). A comparative life cycle assessment on recycled concrete aggregates modified by accelerated carbonation treatment and traditional methods. Waste Management, 172, 235–244. Qureshi, L. A., Ali, B., & Ali, A. (2020). Combined effects of supplementary

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cementitious materials (silica fume, GGBS, fly ash and rice husk ash) and steel fiber on the hardened properties of recycled aggregate concrete. Construction and Building Materials, 263. Rudman, C. (2019). Aspects of self-cementation when applied in roads (PhD dissertation) [Stellenbosch University]. Rudman, C. E., & Jenkins, K. J. (2015). Self-cementing mechanisms of recycled concrete and masonry aggregate. Conference on Asphalt Pavements for Southern Africa (CAPSA15), 11th, 2015, Sun City, South Africa. Sabău, M., Bompa, D. V., & Silva, L. F. O. (2021). Comparative carbon emission assessments of recycled and natural aggregate concrete: Environmental influence of cement content. Geoscience Frontiers, 12(6), 101235. Savva, P., Ioannou, S., Oikonomopoulou, K., Nicolaides, D., & Petrou, M. F. (2021). A Mechanical Treatment Method for Recycled Aggregates and Its Effect on Recycled Aggregate-Based Concrete. Materials 2021, Vol. 14, Page 2186, 14(9), 2186. Shi, C., Li, Y., Zhang, J., Li, W., Chong, L., & Xie, Z. (2016). Performance enhancement of recycled concrete aggregate – A review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, 466–472. Silva, R. V., de Brito, J., & Dhir, R. K. (2017). Availability and processing of recycled aggregates within the construction and demolition supply chain: A review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 598–614. Simon, J., Beushausen, H., & Alexander, M. (2025). The Use of Recycled Construction and Demolition Waste in Low-Strength Concrete Brick and Block Production: A South African Perspective. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, 237, 279–291. Tam, V., Tam, C., Le, K., & Research Online, G. (2007). Removal of cement mortar remains from recycled aggregate using pre-soaking approaches Author Link to published version. Tam, V. W. Y., Soomro, M., & Evangelista, A. C. J. (2021). Quality improvement of recycled concrete aggregate by removal of residual mortar: A comprehensive review of approaches adopted. Construction and Building Materials, 288. Thomas, J., Thaickavil, N. N., & Wilson, P. M. (2018). Strength and durability of concrete containing recycled concrete aggregates. Journal of Building Engineering, 19, 349–365. Visintin, P., Xie, T., & Bennett, B. (2020). A large-scale life-cycle assessment of recycled aggregate concrete: The influence of functional unit, emissions allocation and carbon dioxide uptake. Journal of Cleaner Production, 248, 119243. Wang, C., Chazallon, C., Hornych, P., Mouhoubi, S., & Jing, P. (2024). Effect of self-cementing properties on the resilient behaviour of recycled concrete aggregates used in base and subbase. Road Materials and Pavement Design, 25(10), 2208–2224. Wang, C., Chazallon, C., Jing, P., Hornych, P., & Latour, B. (2023). Effect of selfcementing properties on the mechanical behaviour of recycled concrete aggregates in unbound pavement layers. Transportation Geotechnics, 42. Zhan, B. J., Xuan, D. X., Poon, C. S., & Scrivener, K. L. (2020). Characterization of interfacial transition zone in concrete prepared with carbonated modeled recycled concrete aggregates. Cement and Concrete Research, 136. Zhang, Y., Luo, W., Wang, J., Wang, Y., Xu, Y., & Xiao, J. (2019). A review of life cycle assessment of recycled aggregate concrete. Construction and Building Materials, 209, 115–125.

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PAPER 14

OPTIMIZED FLEXIBLE LININGS FOR A MORE SUSTAINABLE RIVERBANK PROTECTION COMPARING TO THE TRADITIONAL RIPRAP Blaise Jacob¹, Tasmira Saville¹, Devan Govender¹ & Anisur Rahman² Maccaferri Africa (Pty) Ltd¹ & Officine Maccaferri S.p.A²

ABSTRACT Riverbank erosion poses a persistent threat to municipal infrastructure in flood prone regions, driving up the cost of repairs and protection works along both natural and artificial watercourses. Traditional rip-rap linings demand large volumes of natural stone, incurring high expenses through quarrying and carbon intensive transport. This paper presents a specialised software suite that advances erosion control design by prioritising cost effective, performance-based solutions for longitudinal riverbank protections and grade control structures. The software integrates hydraulic modelling with material specific criteria, analysing cross sections under steady, uniform and turbulent flow conditions. It calculates critical hydraulic parameters including average velocity, shear stress and velocity beneath the lining, and compares them against material specific thresholds to verify structural stability and erosion resistance. The tractive force method, preferred over the permissible velocity approach, is employed to assess the interaction between flow-induced stresses and channel linings, offering a more reliable representation of erosion dynamics and a physically consistent basis for design. Central to the cost savings is the incorporation of full-scale tests, conducted in accordance with ASTM D6460, on enhanced reno mattresses featuring pleated diaphragms and special vertical ties. These structural improvements deliver more than 50% greater flow dissipation and resilience than traditional gabions and reno mattresses, reducing natural resource requirements by over 70% relative to riprap. This translates directly into substantial reductions in procurement, transport and installation costs, as well as a lower embodied carbon footprint. For grade control, the tool designs and verifies vertical drops, stepped and sloped weirs, and their dissipation basins across a range of flow conditions, performing both hydraulic and static checks to confirm compliance with relevant safety criteria. In the South African context, this accessible tool aligns with municipal priorities by empowering engineers to develop resilient and defensible designs. It significantly reduces material costs and natural resource consumption compared with traditional rip-rap linings, yielding substantial long-term savings for infrastructure owners while supporting labour-intensive construction methods. By integrating empirical data from full-scale testing, robust hydraulic modelling and practical design tools, the software advances sustainable hydraulic engineering with demonstrable economic and environmental benefits, providing a transparent framework that strengthens decision making for riverbank protection in resource constrained and environmentally sensitive catchments.

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1. INTRODUCTION Riverbank and channel protection remains a central concern in municipal and hydraulic engineering, particularly in river systems characterised by high flow variability, morphological instability and increasing anthropogenic pressure. Across much of South Africa, watercourses are subject to highly seasonal and often flashy flow regimes, with intense convective storms producing rapid rises in discharge that mobilise bed and bank material. The economic and social consequences of uncontrolled erosion are considerable: damage to bridges, culverts, road embankments, water and sanitation infrastructure, and adjacent property imposes recurring costs on local authorities. Longitudinal revetments are widely adopted to mitigate erosion and to preserve channel geometry. However, their design is governed by simplified empirical criteria that inadequately represent the physical mechanisms controlling erosion and structural performance. Among these, permissible velocity approaches remain common in engineering practice despite extensive evidence of their conceptual limitations. Classical hydraulic theory has long established that erosion potential is governed by boundary shear stress rather than by mean flow velocity alone, as set out in foundational works on open channel flow (Chow, 1959). Subsequent technical guidance issued by agencies such as the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration has progressively endorsed shear stress based design criteria, particularly for flexible linings and erosion countermeasures (FHWA, 2005; FHWA, 2012; USACE, 1994). Traditional rip-rap is widely used bank protection method in many South African applications. While effective where competent rock is locally abundant, rip-rap is resource intensive: it requires large quarried volumes, durable angular stone of specified grading, and carbon intensive haulage that becomes prohibitive where suitable material is remote from the site. Flexible rock-filled wire mesh revetments offer an alternative that uses substantially less stone for equivalent hydraulic performance, they can accommodate differential settlement and a substantial proportion of the installation work at site (mattress assembly, lacing and stone packing) is suited to labour intensive construction, consistent with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) guidelines for labour intensive infrastructure projects under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). In parallel with these developments, revetment technologies have themselves evolved. Modern rock-filled mattress systems (Figure 1), incorporate enhanced internal confinement (pleated diaphragms), optimised rockfill gradation and improved structural connections (vertical ties between base and lid), resulting in hydraulic behaviour that differs substantially from that of earlier generation systems. Applying outdated design thresholds to these modern systems introduces unnecessary uncertainty and may lead to either overly conservative or unsafe designs. This paper addresses that gap by combining recent large-scale experimental research on enhanced rock-filled mattress revetments with a

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performance based hydraulic design framework (Di Pietro et al., 2021). The experimental results, obtained from controlled flume tests at Colorado State University (USA), provide material specific resistance thresholds based on physically meaningful failure mechanisms, which are then embedded in a computational design tool to enable transparent and consistent verification of channel and riverbank protection systems.

instability. The observations confirmed that subsoil response governs the ultimate performance limit of mattress-based revetments in high energy flow conditions. The tested configurations incorporated structural enhancements relative to conventional mattress systems, including reinforced vertical connections between base and lid, internal diaphragms with increased confinement efficiency and optimised rockfill gradation. These features contributed to a more effective dissipation of flow energy within the mattress thickness and a reduction in stress concentrations at the interface with the subsoil. Measured performance thresholds, expressed in terms of boundary shear stress, exceeded reference values reported for traditional mattress systems (Simons et al., 1984) by more than 50%, depending on mattress thickness, characteristic stone size and gradation (Di Pietro et al., 2021). The results (Figure 3) demonstrated that the hydraulic behaviour of these systems cannot be adequately described using simplified empirical limits derived for earlier generations of revetments. This finding is of direct practical relevance: it implies that design carried out using legacy thresholds will systematically underestimate the capacity of modern mattresses, leading to conservative over-specification and unnecessary cost.

FIGURE 1: Tested material: advanced rock-filled mattress manufactured in accordance with SANS 23-3 2. EXPERIMENTAL BACKGROUND Large-scale hydraulic testing performed at the Hydraulics Laboratory of Colorado State University provided the experimental basis for evaluating the erosion resistance of modern rock-filled mattress revetment systems under controlled yet realistic flow conditions. The programme was conceived to address limitations commonly observed in earlier studies, where failure criteria were often restricted to visible stone displacement and did not explicitly account for the response of the underlying erodible subsoil. The tests were conducted in a flume equipped with an erodible bed, allowing direct observation of the interaction between flowing water, the revetment system and the subsoil (Figure 2). The experimental methodology followed the principles of ASTM D6460. Flow conditions were progressively increased until the onset of irreversible degradation of the protective function was observed. A defining feature of the approach was the adoption of a functional failure criterion based on the initiation of subsoil erosion beneath the mattress, rather than on superficial rearrangement of the rockfill. This distinction is critical: limited stone movement within confined compartments does not necessarily compromise the hydraulic performance of the revetment, whereas progressive subsoil erosion leads to loss of contact, increased seepage velocities and ultimately structural

FIGURE 2: Views of the flume during testing

FIGURE 3: Maximum shear stress values recorded at Colorado State University in 1984 and in 2019 3. DESIGN METHODOLOGY AND CRITERIA The experimental findings highlight the intrinsic limitations of design approaches based on permissible velocity, which remain widely used despite long standing theoretical objections. Mean velocity is not a direct descriptor of the erosive capacity of a flow, as it does not account for the combined effects of flow depth, hydraulic radius, turbulence structure and boundary roughness. This limitation has been recognised for decades in classical open channel hydraulics (Chow, 1959; USACE, 1994). In contrast, the tractive force method provides a physically consistent framework by directly relating boundary shear stress to the resisting capacity of the protective lining. The approach is particularly suitable for flexible revetment systems, whose performance depends on the distributed interaction between flow induced stresses, internal confinement of the rockfill and subsoil support. Guidance documents such as FHWA HEC-15 and HEC-23 explicitly recommend shear stress based verification for channel linings and countermeasures, acknowledging that velocity based criteria may lead to unconservative or overly conservative designs depending on the hydraulic configuration. The experimental programme at Colorado State University offers a critical contribution in this context by providing shear stress resistance thresholds calibrated against a realistic and conservative failure mechanism. Rather than associating failure with incipient surface instability, the experimentally derived limits correspond to the onset of subsoil erosion beneath the revetment. This definition aligns the design criterion with the fundamental purpose of riverbank protection systems, namely the prevention of progressive erosion and loss of structural integrity.

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Tractive force theory The acting shear stress is computed on the basis of tractive force theory (Figure 4).

FIGURE 4: Forces acting on the fluid mass (adapted from Porto, 2006) The acting forces are represented by the force of the water in the direction of the flow, upstream to the block, “F1” plus the block of water weight under analysis “γw.A.L.sinα”, where “γw” is the specific weight of the water, “A” is the cross sectional area, “L” is the length of the block under analysis and “α” is the longitudinal angle. The resistant forces are represented by the force of the water against the direction of flow, downstream to the block under analysis, “F2” plus the resistant stress that is occasioned by the bed “τ0.P.L”, where “τ0” is the shear stress and “P” is the wetted perimeter. For a steady uniform flow the system can be considered in equilibrium, therefore it is possible to say that F1 = F2. For α<6°, “sinα” can be approximated with the longitudinal slope of the channel “S”. Adjusting the values, the shear stress can be calculated as “τ0 = γw.R.S”. Shear stress in channels is not uniformly distributed along the wetted perimeter (Chow, 1959), therefore the software can determine the reduction of the shear stress acting on inclined riverbank using the approach suggested by Olsen and Florey (1952). When a bank is divided in two or three subsectors, it is possible to estimate the actual shear stress coefficient according to the proportion of water height that is in contact with them (Figure 5). Computed shear stress can be then compared with the allowable of the material selected, choosing from a wide database of erosion protection systems, including natural soils, or green systems, either in their initial stage of recovery (soil bioengineering techniques) or at their advanced vegetated stage (natural vegetation).

FIGURE 5: Example of shear stress coefficient according to the height of the revetments 4. COMPUTATIONAL FRAMEWORK The experimental evidence described above was systematically incorporated into a performance based hydraulic design tool developed for the analysis and verification of channel and bank protection systems. The software performs one-dimensional hydraulic analyses on cross sectional geometries under steady and gradually varied flow conditions. Its primary objective is not merely to compute hydraulic variables, but to enable

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direct verification of protective linings against experimentally validated performance thresholds. Within the channel and bank protection module, the software computes flow depth, wetted perimeter, hydraulic radius, velocity distribution and boundary shear stress for each portion of the cross section, allowing partial or full lining with different materials. Particular attention is given to the estimation of shear stress acting on banks and beds, and to the evaluation of velocities beneath flexible linings, which are critical for assessing the potential for subsoil erosion. These quantities are compared directly with resistance limits derived from laboratory testing, rather than with generic empirical criteria. Most software used for river hydraulics can perform very complex analyses but requires correspondingly detailed and complex input data. The tool described here relies on a more practical approach. The designer selects the type of protection on each segment of a cross section from a material database; for each protection a shear stress resistance is associated. This allows practitioners to verify whether the chosen protection is sufficient to prevent erosion, while keeping the input requirements appropriate to the level of data typically available to a municipal design office. The application of the framework does not eliminate the need for engineering judgement, particularly in reaches characterised by complex flow patterns, sharp curvature or hydraulic transitions. In such cases the one-dimensional representation of the flow may underestimate localised stress concentrations, and supplementary analyses or conservative design margins may be required, consistent with the recommendations in FHWA HEC-23 for stream-instability countermeasures. Nevertheless, within its domain of applicability the tool represents a significant improvement over velocity based approaches, providing a rational basis for the design of modern flexible revetments by clearly linking input assumptions, computed hydraulic parameters and performance criteria. Grade-control structures While the primary focus of this contribution is on longitudinal channel and riverbank protection, the same suite supports the design of grade control structures used to manage bed slope and stabilise the longitudinal profile of a watercourse. The tool checks a wide range of flow conditions and designs three types of gabion weir i.e. vertical drops, stepped weirs and sloped weirs (spillways), together with their dissipation basins, allowing the designer to evaluate and select the most suitable configuration. For the vertical drop weir, the hydraulic analysis determines the downstream uniform flow depth from Manning’s equation, the backwater and jump geometry (including submerged weir conditions), and the downstream scour depth, with the stilling basin treated as unlined / lined / lined and excavated; a counterweir is sized only where the sequent depth requires it. The energy dissipated on each step of a stepped weir reduces the residual energy at the toe and therefore shortens the required stilling pool length, while for spillways the chute width is optimised against wall heights and excavation quantities. For each structure, the suite performs both hydraulic verification (energy dissipation, hydraulic jump, tailwater levels and downstream scour) and static verification (safety factors against sliding, overturning, seepage and filtration). The seepage check is particularly significant for these systems: because the porous gabion fill allows water to pass through the structure rather than around an impermeable base, the resulting flow paths produce strongly reduced velocities and hydraulic gradients near the toe; the safety factor against seepage and piping for a gabion weir is reported to be at least three times that of an equivalent concrete weir of the same geometry on the same foundation soil, even after allowing for long-term clogging. Consequently, the check

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TABLE 1: Comparison of traditional rip-rap and rock-filled mattress for riverbank protection Criterion

Traditional rip-rap

Rock-filled mattress

Design basis

Often permissible velocity

Shear stress, performance based on full-scale flume tests

Stone size required

Large stone owing to the low Shields coefficient

Smaller rock can be used to fill the mattress

Economy

Costly; heavy stone is seldom available locally

Cost-effective; can be filled with locally available, moderately sized stone

Behaviour beyond design forces

Initial stone movement is a limit state; a small additional force can progressively destroy the lining

Mesh confinement continues after initial movement; the unit may deform slightly but tolerates more severe conditions

Differential settlement

Not tolerated

Flexible; accommodates differential settlement without failure

Channel capacity

Large stone and high roughness reduce conveyance

Smaller stone and lower roughness enhance discharge capacity

is carried out using the method of critical hydraulic gradients rather than the conservative Bligh and Lane formulations derived for concrete. This capability is particularly relevant to South African stormwater and watercourse management, where steep urban catchments and erodible soils make bed level control a frequent requirement, and where permeable, flexible rock-filled structures provide an economical, constructible and hydraulically efficient alternative to mass concrete drop structures.

5. SOUTH AFRICAN APPLICATION AND COST ANALYSIS The case for flexible revetments in the South African context rests on three linked arguments: resource efficiency, total cost of ownership (TCO) and constructability. Each is considered in turn below. Resource intensity of rip-rap Traditional rip-rap protection requires a competent, durable and wellgraded angular stone placed to a thickness governed by the design flow. The quarried volume per unit area is high and, because suitable rock is not uniformly distributed, haulage distances are frequently long. Transport of dense natural stone is both costly and carbon intensive, and in many inland and ecologically sensitive catchments the environmental cost of opening or expanding a quarry is difficult to justify. By contrast, an enhanced rock-filled mattress confines a thinner layer of smaller, more readily available stone within a double-twisted (DT) steel wire mesh solution, mobilising the confinement of the structure rather than the mass of individual stones to resist the flow. Material and resource savings Because the experimentally validated shear stress resistance of enhanced mattresses exceeds that of traditional systems by more than 50%, an equivalent level of protection can be achieved with a markedly thinner section and a smaller characteristic stone size. In combination with the confining action of the mesh, this allows the stone requirement to be reduced by over 70% relative to a rip-rap solution designed for the same hydraulic performance. The reduction in quarried volume translates directly into fewer truck movements, lower fuel consumption and a smaller embodied-carbon footprint, while also reducing the pressure on local stone resources. TCO and ease of construction The cost of a riverbank protection scheme comprises procurement of materials, transport to site, installation and maintenance over the design life. Flexible mattress revetments reduce the first two components through the resource savings described above. The third component is

particularly significant in the South African context: DT mesh products are well suited to labour intensive construction methods of the kind promoted under the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), allowing a significant share of project expenditure to be directed towards local employment. Over the longer term, the flexibility of mattress systems allows them to accommodate minor settlement without catastrophic failure. The maintenance demand is therefore generally lower than that of a rigid system, which tends to fail abruptly once undermined. Table 1 summarises the comparison between traditional rip-rap and rock-filled mattress across the principal decision criteria.

6. DISCUSSION The integration of experimentally derived performance limits into a computational design framework represents a substantive step towards more physically grounded riverbank protection design. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on indirect indicators of erosive capacity, the adopted methodology relates computed boundary shear stresses directly to resistance thresholds calibrated against realistic failure mechanisms. The definition of failure based on the initiation of subsoil erosion, rather than superficial rock movement, is consistent with the functional objective of revetment systems and resolves ambiguities present in earlier studies, where limited stone displacement was sometimes interpreted as structural failure despite the absence of progressive erosion. Comparable concerns regarding failure definition for flexible linings are reflected in FHWA guidance, which emphasises the importance of subgrade stability in erosion control performance (FHWA, 2005; FHWA, 2012). From a modelling perspective, the tractive-force-based framework allows a more robust treatment of partially lined sections and nonuniform geometries, conditions under which permissible velocity criteria are known to be unreliable. The methodology is not, however, without limitations. The reliance on one-dimensional hydraulic modelling means that local 3D flow phenomena, such as turbulence amplification at transitions and in sharp bends, are not explicitly resolved; as noted in classical and applied hydraulics literature, these effects can locally increase boundary stresses beyond cross sectionally averaged values (Chow, 1959; USACE, 1994). Performance also remains dependent on construction quality, in particular the integrity of the mesh, the connections and the rockfill placement. The framework should therefore be regarded as a decision-support methodology that enhances, rather than replaces, engineering judgement. Its primary contribution lies in improving the transparency and physical consistency of revetment design, and in giving municipal engineers a defensible, repeatable basis for comparing options on both technical and economic grounds.

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durability of the revetment to be matched explicitly to the design life of the works.

FIGURE 6: Example of cross-section design using the software 7. CONCLUSIONS This paper has presented an integrated framework for the design of riverbank and channel protection systems that combines large scale experimental research with a performance based hydraulic design methodology (Figure 6). The experimental programme conducted at Colorado State University demonstrated that modern rock-filled mattress revetments with enhanced internal confinement exhibit substantially higher resistance to erosion than traditional systems, with measured shear stress thresholds exceeding legacy reference values by more than 50%. Significantly, performance limits were defined on the basis of the initiation of subsoil erosion, providing a failure criterion directly aligned with the functional purpose of revetment systems. The translation of these findings into a computational design tool enables direct verification of revetment performance using boundary shear stress rather than simplified velocity based criteria. This is consistent with established hydraulic theory and contemporary technical guidance, and it provides a more reliable basis for designing flexible linings across a wide range of hydraulic conditions, as well as for the design and verification of grade control structures. For the South African municipal context, the approach offers a clear and quantifiable benefit: equivalent hydraulic protection can be achieved with over 70% less natural stone than traditional rip-rap, with corresponding reductions in transport, embodied carbon and cost, and with construction methods well suited to local labour intensive programmes (EPWP). Specifying advanced rock-filled mattresses manufactured in accordance with SANS 23-3 and selecting the steel wire mesh coating appropriate to the site environment level, allows the

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8. RECOMMENDATIONS The design of flexible riverbank and channel linings should adopt shear stress based (tractive force) verification in preference to permissible velocity criteria, in line with classical hydraulic theory and current international guidance. This is best achieved through performance-based design tools that embed experimentally validated material resistance thresholds, so that the verification of a lining is traceable from the input assumptions, through the computed hydraulic parameters, to a defined performance criterion. On schemes where stone haulage, quarrying impact or total cost of ownership are significant, enhanced rockfilled mattresses should be evaluated as an alternative to rip-rap, with the resource, cost and embodied-carbon savings quantified explicitly at the options stage. Where these systems are adopted, the hexagonal double-twisted steel wire mesh should be specified to SANS 23-3, with the metallic and polymer coating selected according to the site environment level (C4 to CX), so that the assumed working life of the protection is matched to the design life of the works.

REFERENCES ASTM International. (2019). ASTM D6460 – Standard Test Method for Determination of Rolled Erosion Control Product Performance. West Conshohocken, PA, USA. Chow, V. T. (1959). Open-Channel Hydraulics. McGraw-Hill, New York, USA. Di Pietro P., Mazzon N., Xu F. & Zhang C. (2021). Hydraulic performance of reinforced rock-filled mattress revetments. Proceedings of an international hydraulic engineering conference. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2005). HEC-15: Design of Roadside Channels with Flexible Linings. Hydraulic Engineering Circular No. 15, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C., USA. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). (2012). HEC-23: Bridge Scour and Stream Instability Countermeasures. Hydraulic Engineering Circular No. 23, U.S. Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C., USA. MacRA Design. (2023). Scientific Reference Manual: Channel and Bank Protection Module (Rev. 2.2). Maccaferri. Simons D., Chen Y.H. & Swenson L.J. (1984). Hydraulic Tests to Develop Design Criteria for the Use of Reno Mattresses. Civil Engineering Department – Engineering Research Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA. South African Bureau of Standards (SABS). (2020). SANS 23-3:2020 / EN 10223-3:2013: Steel wire and wire products for fencing and netting – Part 3: Hexagonal steel wire mesh products for civil engineering purposes. SABS, Pretoria, South Africa. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1994). EM 1110-2-1601: Hydraulic Design of Flood Control Channels. Washington, D.C., USA.

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PAPER 15

SMART SKIES, RESILIENT WATER: UAVS IN INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT, THE ROLE OF DRONE TECHNOLOGY IN ADVANCING WATER AND SANITATION MANAGEMENT

¹Leonard Balakisten and ²Seelan Rajah ¹DroneLabs, ²SLB Consulting (Pty) Ltd

ABSTRACT The water and sanitation sector is under increasing pressure from aging infrastructure, rapid urbanization, climate change, and limited operational resources. Traditional methods for monitoring, inspection, and planning are often costly, slow, and pose significant safety risks to personnel. In this context, drone technology-also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)has emerged as a valuable tool to support more efficient, safe, and datadriven water and sanitation management. Drones are increasingly used to inspect critical water infrastructure such as dams, reservoirs, pipelines, water towers, and wastewater treatment facilities. Equipped with highresolution cameras and advanced sensors, drones enable rapid identification of leaks, structural defects, corrosion, and operational failures without interrupting services or exposing workers to hazardous environments. This capability supports preventive maintenance and helps reduce water losses, including nonrevenue water. In wastewater and sanitation systems, drones improve monitoring of sewer networks, treatment plants, and overflow points. They allow utilities to detect blockages, overflows, and infrastructure damage efficiently, improving regulatory compliance and reducing environmental and public health risks. In addition, drones play a growing role in water quality monitoring by collecting realtime data and physical water samples from rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, particularly in remote or polluted areas. Beyond infrastructure management, drone technology supports sanitation mapping and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions by providing accurate spatial data for planning sanitation facilities in informal settlements and underserved communities. Drones are also crucial during disasters such as floods and droughts, where they provide rapid situational awareness, support emergency response, and assist in the protection and restoration of water services. Overall, drone technology offers significant benefits to the water and sanitation sector, including enhanced safety, reduced operational costs, faster data collection, improved decisionmaking, and greater resilience to climaterelated risks. While challenges remain-such as regulatory constraints, skills requirements, and data management needs-the strategic integration of drone technology presents a strong opportunity to modernize water and sanitation services and contribute to sustainable, reliable service delivery. 1. INTRODUCTION Reliable water supply and safe sanitation underpin public health, environmental protection, economic activity, and community well-being. Yet many water and sanitation institutions are expected to maintain dependable services while working with ageing networks, constrained

budgets, expanding settlements, climate-related shocks, and increasing public expectations (IPCC, 2022; World Bank, 2024; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). Pipelines, reservoirs, pump stations, treatment works, sewer systems, and stormwater interfaces all require regular condition monitoring, but the scale and complexity of these assets make comprehensive inspection difficult. Conventional approaches often depend on manual site visits, ground surveys, scaffolding, confined-space entry, and reactive maintenance. These methods can be slow, costly, disruptive, and unsafe, particularly where access is limited or infrastructure has already failed. As a result, problems are sometimes detected only after water losses, overflows, flooding, service interruptions, environmental impacts, or community complaints have occurred. Against this background, drone technology provides a practical means of strengthening inspection, monitoring, planning, and emergency response. UAVs equipped with optical cameras, thermal sensors, multispectral sensors, LiDAR, gas detection equipment, or sampling devices can collect visual, spatial, and environmental information without placing personnel in unnecessary danger (Sibanda et al., 2021; Hamzah et al., 2024). Their ability to operate above, around, or within difficult locations makes them suitable for dams, reservoirs, pipelines, treatment works, river corridors, informal settlements, and disaster-affected areas. This paper considers how drones can be integrated into water and sanitation workflows to support safer operations, better evidence, proactive maintenance, and more resilient service delivery.

2. OVERVIEW OF DRONE TECHNOLOGY Drones are aerial platforms that are either remotely piloted or programmed to fly autonomously for the purpose of collecting information from a site or asset. Their design varies according to endurance, operating range, payload capacity, stability, data requirements, and the complexity of the mission. Within water and sanitation environments, they are commonly applied to aerial surveys, infrastructure condition assessments, mapping, environmental observation, construction monitoring, security support, and disaster response (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Typical payloads include high-resolution cameras for visual inspection, thermal sensors for detecting temperature differences, LiDAR units for three-dimensional mapping, multispectral sensors for environmental analysis, and specialised probes or sampling devices for water quality work (Sibanda et al., 2021; Lu et al., 2021; Wasehun et al., 2024). The value of these payloads increases when the outputs are processed through GIS, artificial intelligence tools, asset registers, engineering models, and maintenance systems. In that form, drone data moves beyond images and point clouds and becomes engineering evidence that can inform defect identification,

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condition ratings, maintenance priorities, renewal planning, risk assessment, construction verification, and operational decisions (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024).

FIGURE 1: M400 UAV with Lidar payload Examples of engineering intelligence applications include automated defect detection from drone imagery, point cloud comparison to identify settlement or deformation, vegetation encroachment analysis along pipeline servitudes, reservoir embankment stability monitoring, volumetric measurement of earthworks and sludge stockpiles, erosion and scour mapping near river crossings, thermal anomaly detection at pump stations or electrical panels, access-road condition assessment, construction progress verification, and risk-based maintenance prioritisation (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). When these outputs are linked to GIS, asset registers, hydraulic models, SCADA data, and maintenance systems, they enable engineers and asset managers to move beyond visual reporting and produce actionable insights such as condition ratings, failure likelihood, consequence-offailure mapping, maintenance triggers, rehabilitation priorities, and capital renewal forecasts (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024).

3. LIDAR PAYLOADS, POINT CLOUDS, DIGITAL TWINS AND 3D ASSET MODELLING LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging, is a key sensing technology for producing engineering-grade spatial information from drone platforms. Instead of relying only on photographs, a LiDAR sensor transmits laser pulses and records the return signal to calculate the position of millions of points in three-dimensional space. When this information is combined with GNSS, RTK or PPK correction, inertial measurement data, and appropriate ground control, UAV LiDAR can generate accurate datasets for terrain, structures, corridors, reservoirs, treatment works, pump stations, riverbanks, embankments, and other water and sanitation assets (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). The resulting point cloud provides a measurable digital record of the physical environment. Individual points can be processed and classified to separate ground levels, vegetation, buildings, tanks, pipe routes, channels, embankments, access roads, and other features. This is particularly useful where original drawings are missing, outdated, or inconsistent with actual site conditions. Along partially hidden or buried infrastructure corridors, LiDAR-derived models can also support surface profiling, servitude mapping, slope and drainage assessment, vegetation encroachment review, and volume calculations (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024).

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LiDAR datasets can also serve as a spatial foundation for digital twins and three-dimensional asset models. In this context, a digital twin is a dynamic digital representation of a physical asset or system that can be enriched over time with inspection results, operating data, maintenance history, sensor readings, photographs, and condition assessments (American Water Works Association, n.d.; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025). For water and sanitation authorities, this may include digital representations of reservoirs, wastewater treatment works, pump stations, pipe bridges, outfalls, culverts, canals, access roads, river crossings, and flood-prone service corridors. The main advantage of a digital twin is that it creates a common spatial reference for planning, operations, maintenance, and decision-making. Repeat surveys can be compared to show changes such as settlement, deformation, erosion, embankment movement, vegetation growth, altered stockpile volumes, or unauthorised activity near servitudes. Asset managers can connect the model to registers, inspection records, risk scores, photographs, maintenance notes, and renewal programmes. This supports better budgeting, stronger design coordination, predictive maintenance, and clearer communication between engineers, managers, contractors, operators, and municipal departments (Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025; WSP, 2026). For municipalities such as eThekwini, LiDAR-enabled digital twins can support long-term infrastructure resilience by creating a living record of critical assets and their surrounding environments. This is particularly useful for flood-prone areas, steep terrain, reservoirs, pump stations, wastewater works, and informal settlement interfaces where infrastructure condition and environmental risk change over time (eThekwini Municipality, 2022; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025). To achieve this, drone LiDAR outputs should be processed into interoperable formats such as point clouds, digital terrain models, digital surface models, contours, orthophotos, meshes, CAD layers, GIS datasets, and BIM-compatible models. Examples of digital twin applications in water and sanitation infrastructure include hydraulic performance modelling of water distribution networks, real-time monitoring of pump station efficiency, reservoir level and storage optimisation, wastewater treatment process simulation, sewer overflow prediction, flood-risk scenario modelling, leak and pressure anomaly detection, asset health dashboards, and construction progress verification (American Water Works Association, n.d.; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025; WSP, 2026). For example, a reservoir digital twin can combine drone-derived 3D geometry, level sensor data, inspection photographs, maintenance history, and security information to support storage planning, condition assessment, and risk-based maintenance. A wastewater treatment works digital twin can combine process data, equipment condition, drone imagery, and BIM or GIS models to optimise treatment performance, energy use, sludge handling, and maintenance scheduling. Similarly, a pump station digital twin can model pump duty cycles, vibration readings, power consumption, flooding exposure, and access constraints to support predictive maintenance and emergency response planning (Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025; WSP, 2026). Digital twin case study examples: A reservoir digital twin can be developed by combining drone LiDAR, orthophotography, level sensors, inspection photographs, access records, security information, and maintenance history into a single operational model. This allows engineers to monitor structural condition, storage capacity, roof integrity, embankment stability, vegetation encroachment, and security risks over time. It also supports scenario planning for drought conditions, emergency storage management, planned maintenance

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A water distribution network digital twin can link hydraulic models, GIS pipe records, valve and meter data, pressure zones, district metered areas, SCADA information, and customer demand patterns. This allows utilities to test network behaviour under pipe bursts, fire-flow demand, pressure fluctuations, valve closures, load shedding, and planned outages. It can also support leak detection, non-revenue water reduction, pressure management, and capital planning by showing how failures in one part of the system affect service delivery elsewhere (American Water Works Association, n.d.; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025). A flood-prone infrastructure corridor digital twin can be created from repeated drone surveys, LiDAR FIGURE 2: Image of Intelligent Digital twin mapping point clouds, digital terrain models, rainfall data, flood shutdowns, and rehabilitation budgeting (American Water Works levels, asset locations, and historical damage records. This twin can be used Association, n.d.; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025). to model erosion, scour, embankment instability, riverbank movement, A pump station digital twin can integrate 3D asset geometry, pump culvert blockage, pipe exposure, and access-road vulnerability. It provides specifications, telemetry, flow and pressure data, power consumption, a practical decision-support tool for climate adaptation, emergency response, servitude protection, and resilient redesign of pipelines, vibration readings, flooding exposure, access constraints, and maintenance records. This enables operators to test pump duty scenarios, identify crossings, and sanitation infrastructure (IPCC, 2022; eThekwini Municipality, inefficient operating patterns, predict mechanical failure, optimise energy 2022; Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025). use, and plan emergency response. For remote or flood-prone pump A construction and asset handover digital twin can be used during stations, the twin can also assist with understanding access routes, backup capital projects to record site conditions, construction progress, installed power needs, and risks to continuous service delivery (Ghorbani Bam et assets, quality inspections, test results, as-built information, and contractor al., 2025; WSP, 2026). deliverables. Drone imagery and point clouds can verify earthworks, pipe A wastewater treatment works digital twin can combine drone-derived alignments, structures, access roads, stockpiles, and completed works 3D models, process data, laboratory results, equipment status, sludge before handover. Once the project is completed, the digital twin becomes handling information, energy consumption, and compliance records. The part of the operational asset record, reducing the gap between design, model can be used to simulate hydraulic loading, optimise aeration and construction, and long-term maintenance (Institute of Public Works chemical dosing, monitor clarifier performance, identify maintenance risks, Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). and assess the effect of stormwater inflow or industrial discharges. This supports better compliance management, lower operating costs, improved Challenges of implementing digital twins energy efficiency, and more reliable effluent quality (Ghorbani Bam et al., Despite their value, digital twins can be difficult to implement in municipal 2025; WSP, 2026). water and sanitation environments. Key challenges include high initial costs

FIGURE 3: Examples of digital twin applications in water infrastructure

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for LiDAR surveys, sensors, software, cloud storage, modelling platforms, and specialist skills. Data quality is also critical: inaccurate asset registers, incomplete as-built records, inconsistent GIS layers, poor telemetry coverage, and unclassified point clouds can reduce the reliability of the digital twin. Integration is another major challenge, as drone data, SCADA systems, maintenance records, hydraulic models, BIM files, and financial systems often sit in separate platforms that do not communicate easily. Municipalities must also manage cybersecurity, data ownership, privacy, version control, long-term maintenance of models, and institutional capacity. Without clear governance, digital twins risk becoming static visual models rather than living decision-support systems that actively improve operations, budgeting, resilience, and service delivery (Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025; WSP, 2026; ISO, 2024).

4. APPLICATIONS IN WATER INFRASTRUCTURE INSPECTION One of the most established applications of drones in the water sector is the inspection of critical infrastructure. Drones can be deployed to inspect dams, reservoirs, water towers, bulk pipelines, pump stations, treatment facilities, intake structures, canals, and elevated assets, particularly where access is restricted, expensive, or unsafe (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). High-resolution aerial imagery allows engineers and asset managers to identify cracking, corrosion, spalling, vegetation encroachment, settlement, erosion, leakage indicators, damaged roofs, failed coatings, and security risks. Thermal imaging may assist in identifying moisture variation or hidden leakage in certain contexts, while LiDAR can generate accurate three-dimensional models for asset condition assessments and volumetric measurements (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). By reducing the need for scaffolding, rope access, elevated work platforms, and confined manual inspections, drones improve worker safety and reduce operational disruption. They also support preventive maintenance by enabling more frequent and consistent inspections. This helps utilities move from reactive maintenance to condition-based asset management, improving service reliability and extending asset life (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). 5. APPLICATIONS IN WASTEWATER AND SEWER SYSTEMS Wastewater and sewer systems present significant inspection challenges because they often include confined spaces, hazardous gases, biological contamination, deep chambers, culverts, tunnels, and inaccessible routes. Drone technology is increasingly being used to inspect sewer networks, manholes, wastewater treatment plants, pump stations, overflow points, and stormwater interfaces (Sibanda et al., 2021; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). In treatment works, drones can provide rapid visual assessment of clarifiers, basins, channels, tanks, sludge handling areas, roofs, access roads, and perimeter infrastructure. In sewer and stormwater systems, specialised drones can assist with detecting blockages, structural damage, illegal connections, infiltration, overflow risks, and areas requiring cleaning or rehabilitation (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). This improves operational planning and supports compliance with environmental and public health requirements (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; ISO, 2024). Drone-based inspections can also reduce human exposure to hazardous environments. This is particularly important in confinedspace inspections where oxygen deficiency, toxic gases, unstable surfaces, and biological hazards present serious risks. When integrated with digital maintenance systems, drone inspection outputs can support

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prioritisation of repair works, budgeting, and long-term rehabilitation planning (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024).

6. W ATER QUALITY MONITORING AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT Drones are becoming increasingly useful for monitoring water quality in rivers, dams, reservoirs, wetlands, estuaries, and coastal areas (Hamzah et al., 2024; Wasehun et al., 2024). Traditional monitoring normally depends on field teams collecting samples at selected points, followed by laboratory analysis. Although this remains essential, it can be limited by site access, safety conditions, staff availability, sampling frequency, and the difficulty of representing large or changing water bodies. Dronebased monitoring can complement these methods by rapidly covering wider areas and capturing high-resolution information in locations that may be difficult or unsafe to reach (Sibanda et al., 2021; Wasehun et al., 2024). Depending on the equipment fitted, drones can capture imagery, assess surface conditions, identify turbidity patterns, detect algal bloom indicators, track sediment plumes, locate potential pollution sources, and collect water samples (Lu et al., 2021; Long et al., 2025; Hamzah et al., 2024). Current research also shows that UAVs can help address spatial data gaps, particularly for small inland water bodies where satellite imagery may not provide sufficient resolution (Long et al., 2025; Wasehun et al., 2024). In municipal operations, this capability can assist with raw water monitoring, post-flood contamination checks, illegal discharge investigations, environmental compliance, catchment management, erosion control, wetland protection, and pollution response planning (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; Hamzah et al., 2024). 7. SANITATION MAPPING AND WASH PLANNING Drone technology can play an important role in sanitation planning, particularly in informal settlements, rural areas, rapidly urbanising communities, and underserved regions where reliable spatial data may be limited (Sibanda et al., 2021; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). High-resolution drone imagery can support the mapping of dwellings, footpaths, drainage routes, water points, sanitation facilities, informal discharge points, flood-prone areas, and service access constraints (Sibanda et al., 2021; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). For Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programmes, accurate mapping is essential for understanding service gaps, prioritising interventions, and designing appropriate infrastructure. Drones can help planners identify where communal ablution blocks, household sanitation upgrades, drainage improvements, or emergency water points are required. This supports more equitable and evidence-based service delivery (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). Drone-derived mapping can also support community engagement by providing visual evidence of settlement conditions and infrastructure constraints. However, the use of drones in inhabited areas must be managed carefully to address privacy, consent, community trust, and data protection requirements (Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, 2024; South African Civil Aviation Authority, n.d.). 8. DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT AND CLIMATE RESILIENCE Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts, storms, heat events, and infrastructure stress (IPCC, 2022; World Bank, 2024). Water and sanitation systems are particularly vulnerable to these hazards because they depend on functioning networks, treatment capacity, water sources, and access routes (World Bank, 2024; Department

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of Water and Sanitation, 2025). Drone technology provides rapid situational awareness before, during, and after disaster events (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). During flooding, drones can map inundated areas, identify damaged pipelines and pump stations, assess access constraints, locate blocked culverts, and support emergency response planning (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). During droughts, drones can support monitoring of reservoirs, wetlands, abstraction points, and environmental stress indicators (IPCC, 2022; World Bank, 2024). After extreme events, drone imagery can help quantify damage, prioritise repairs, and support funding or insurance documentation (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). The speed of deployment is a major advantage. Instead of waiting for full ground access, response teams can use drone data to make early decisions, protect critical assets, and restore services faster. In this way, drones contribute directly to climate resilience and continuity of essential services (World Bank, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024).

9. CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND RESILIENCE Climate change is increasingly recognised as a water and sanitation challenge because its impacts are experienced through changes in rainfall intensity, drought frequency, flooding, coastal hazards, heat stress, and water quality deterioration (IPCC, 2022; World Bank, 2024). For municipalities and utilities, these changes place pressure on bulk water supply, wastewater treatment, stormwater interfaces, access roads, reservoirs, pump stations, river crossings, and sanitation services in vulnerable communities (World Bank, 2024; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). Drone technology supports climate adaptation by improving the speed, accuracy, and frequency of environmental and infrastructure monitoring. Drones can be used to map flood-prone areas, monitor erosion, assess slope instability, inspect riverbanks and servitudes, track changes in wetlands and water bodies, and identify infrastructure exposed to extreme weather (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). When combined with LiDAR, GIS, hydrological modelling, and asset management systems, drone data can help utilities understand which assets are most vulnerable and where adaptation investments should be prioritised (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). In drought conditions, drones can assist with monitoring reservoir levels, exposed infrastructure, vegetation stress, catchment degradation, sedimentation, and illegal abstraction risks (IPCC, 2022; World Bank, 2024). In high-rainfall and flood conditions, drones can rapidly identify damaged pipelines, flooded pump stations, blocked culverts, scoured embankments,

01 CAPTURE THE BASELINE High-resolution aerial mapping records the road, river corridos, structures, and access routes.

sewer overflow pathways, and communities cut off from services (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). This creates a stronger evidence base for climate-resilient planning, emergency response, insurance claims, infrastructure redesign, and capital budgeting (World Bank, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Drone-based climate resilience work should also consider social vulnerability. Informal settlements, low-lying communities, steep terrain settlements, and areas with limited formal drainage are often most exposed to climate impacts (eThekwini Municipality, 2022; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). High-resolution drone mapping can help identify where sanitation services, access roads, drainage improvements, emergency water points, and flood mitigation measures are most urgently required. In this way, drones can support both technical resilience and more equitable service delivery (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; World Bank, 2024).

10. SECURITY OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE USING DRONES Water and sanitation assets are part of critical infrastructure and are therefore exposed to a range of physical, operational, environmental, and security risks. Reservoirs, pump stations, water treatment works, wastewater treatment plants, chemical storage areas, bulk pipelines, service reservoirs, and control facilities may be vulnerable to vandalism, theft, illegal access, sabotage, contamination risks, and unauthorised surveillance (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, 2024). Drone technology can strengthen infrastructure security by providing rapid aerial visibility over large or difficult-to-monitor sites (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Security drones can be used for perimeter patrols, fence-line inspections, night-time surveillance, intrusion detection, incident verification, and monitoring of remote assets where permanent security presence may be limited. When fitted with highresolution cameras, thermal imaging, night-vision capability, spotlights, loudspeakers, and automated flight planning, drones can assist security teams in identifying unusual movement, unauthorised vehicles, damage to fencing, open access points, and suspicious activity near sensitive assets (Sibanda et al., 2021; South African Civil Aviation Authority, n.d.). For municipal water and sanitation systems, drone-based security monitoring can be particularly valuable for reservoirs located in isolated areas, pump stations affected by cable theft, wastewater works with large perimeters, and project sites where construction materials and plant are exposed. Drones allow security personnel to verify alarms quickly before dispatching ground teams, reducing response time and improving situational awareness (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). In emergency situations, drones can

02 BUILD SURFACE INTELLIGENCE Terrain and surface data establish elevation, drainage paths and assets requiring closer analysis.

03 MODEL POTENTIAL INUNDATION Scenario outputs reveal where people, structures and transport links may be exposed.

FIGURE 4: M19 flood-risk intelligence exposure before an incident

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provide live visual information to operations managers, law enforcement, disaster management teams, and facility supervisors. However, drones also introduce new security considerations. Unauthorised drones operated by third parties may be used to observe security arrangements, map vulnerable access points, interfere with operations, or support criminal activity. Critical infrastructure owners should therefore consider both the beneficial use of drones and the risks posed by hostile or unauthorised drone activity. A balanced security strategy should include authorised drone patrols, clear airspace procedures, incident reporting protocols, cyber-secure data handling, and coordination with security providers and relevant authorities (South African Civil Aviation Authority, n.d.; Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, 2024; ISO, 2024).

11. ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY USE CASES eThekwini Municipality provides a relevant South African municipal context for demonstrating the potential value of drone technology in water and sanitation management. The municipality operates across a complex coastal and inland urban environment that includes dense settlements, steep terrain, flood-prone catchments, ageing infrastructure, wastewater treatment facilities, reservoirs, pump stations, and rapidly expanding service areas (eThekwini Municipality, 2022; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). These conditions create a strong case for using drones as part of a wider digital infrastructure, disaster resilience, and asset management strategy (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Use Case 1: Flood damage assessment and emergency response. Following major flood events in Durban and surrounding areas, drone mapping can support rapid assessment of damaged water and sanitation infrastructure (eThekwini Municipality, 2022; IPCC, 2022). UAVs can be used to capture current imagery of washed-away pipelines, damaged access roads, blocked culverts, unstable embankments, eroded servitudes, affected pump stations, and inaccessible wastewater assets (Sibanda et al., 2021; eThekwini Municipality, 2022). This provides engineers and disaster management teams with early situational awareness before full ground access is restored. In practical terms, this can improve repair prioritisation, contractor mobilisation, insurance documentation, and communication with affected communities Use Case 2: Reservoirs, water towers, and pump station inspections. eThekwini’s dispersed water supply network includes reservoirs, elevated storage structures, pump stations, and bulk supply routes that require regular condition monitoring (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; ISO, 2024). Drone inspections can assist with identifying cracks, corrosion, roof defects, vegetation encroachment, leakage indicators, vandalism, and perimeter security weaknesses (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Thermal or high-resolution imaging may also support targeted follow-up inspections where abnormal moisture, surface deterioration, or access constraints are present. This approach reduces the need for scaffolding or elevated access equipment and enables more frequent asset condition assessments (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Use Case 3: Wastewater treatment works and sewer overflow monitoring. Wastewater infrastructure within the municipal environment is exposed to high operational, environmental, and compliance pressures (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; ISO, 2024). Drones can assist with monitoring treatment works, clarifiers, sludge drying beds, oxidation

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ponds, outfalls, access roads, perimeter fencing, and overflow-prone areas (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Where sewer blockages or overflow incidents occur, aerial imagery can help identify affected drainage routes, contamination pathways, and nearby sensitive receptors such as rivers, wetlands, schools, and residential areas. This supports faster incident response and more defensible environmental reporting (Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025; Sibanda et al., 2021). Use Case 4: Sanitation planning in informal and peri-urban settlements. In dense or difficult-to-access settlements, conventional field surveys may be slow and incomplete. Drone-derived orthophotos and terrain models can help planners map dwellings, footpaths, drainage channels, flood risk areas, existing sanitation points, informal discharge routes, and potential sites for communal ablution facilities or decentralised sanitation solutions (Sibanda et al., 2021; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). For eThekwini, this type of mapping can strengthen Water, Sanitation and Hygiene planning by linking spatial evidence to infrastructure design, community engagement, and phased service delivery (eThekwini Municipality, 2022; Department of Water and Sanitation, 2025). Use Case 5: City-wide drone mapping and GIS integration. A city-wide drone mapping approach can support multiple departments by producing LiDAR, orthophotography, three-dimensional models, and processed spatial datasets for use on municipal GIS platforms (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Within eThekwini, this would allow drone outputs to be shared across engineering, water and sanitation, stormwater, disaster management, environmental management, and project delivery teams. The value of this approach lies in avoiding isolated drone projects and instead creating a common spatial evidence base for planning, emergency response, maintenance prioritisation, and capital investment decisions (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). These use cases show that drone technology is most effective when deployed as part of an integrated municipal workflow. For eThekwini, the priority should not be limited to acquiring drone imagery but should include converting that imagery into usable engineering information through GIS integration, asset registers, maintenance systems, environmental reporting, and disaster response protocols (ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024).

12. ASSET SUSTAINABILITY AND LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT Asset sustainability refers to the ability of infrastructure owners to plan, operate, maintain, rehabilitate, and replace assets in a manner that preserves service delivery, reduces whole-life costs, manages risk, and supports long-term environmental and financial resilience (ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). In the water and sanitation sector, this is particularly important because many assets are buried, dispersed, difficult to access, and costly to replace once failure occurs. Drone technology strengthens asset sustainability by improving the quality and frequency of condition assessment. Instead of relying only on periodic manual inspections or reactive maintenance after breakdowns, drones enable utilities to capture repeatable visual, thermal, spatial, and environmental data. This allows asset managers to identify deterioration trends, detect early warning signs, compare asset condition over time, and prioritise maintenance based on risk rather than guesswork (Sibanda et al., 2021; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). From a life-cycle management perspective, drone data can support every stage of an asset’s life. During planning and design, drone surveys provide accurate terrain and site information. During construction, drone imagery

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supports progress monitoring, quality control, measurement verification, and contractor oversight. During operation, drones assist with routine inspections, security monitoring, environmental compliance, and emergency response. During rehabilitation or replacement, historical drone records provide evidence for renewal decisions, funding motivation, and technical scoping (ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). For municipalities such as eThekwini, asset sustainability also requires integration between drone outputs, GIS platforms, asset registers, maintenance management systems, capital planning, and financial reporting (ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). A drone inspection is only valuable if the findings are linked to a specific asset, assigned a condition rating, prioritised according to consequence of failure, and converted into a practical maintenance or renewal action. This approach supports more defensible budgeting and helps municipalities move from reactive repairs to planned, evidence-based asset stewardship (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). Sustainable asset management further supports environmental performance. Early identification of leaks, overflows, erosion, sedimentation, failing embankments, and damaged infrastructure can reduce water losses, contamination events, energy waste, emergency repairs, and avoidable replacement. In this way, drones contribute not only to operational efficiency, but also to long-term infrastructure resilience, climate adaptation, and responsible use of public resources (World Bank, 2024; ISO, 2024).

13. BENEFITS OF DRONE INTEGRATION The integration of drones into water and sanitation operations provides several practical benefits. These include improved safety, faster inspections, reduced operational costs, enhanced data quality, better asset condition records, more informed decision-making, and improved environmental compliance. Drones also enable utilities to inspect assets more frequently without the same level of disruption associated with manual methods. From a financial perspective, drones can reduce the cost of access equipment, specialist inspection teams, emergency callouts, and repeated field visits. While drone programmes require initial investment in equipment, training, software, and governance, the long-term value lies in improved maintenance planning, reduced asset failure, and better prioritisation of limited budgets. From a governance perspective, drone outputs improve documentation and auditability. Photographs, videos, point clouds, maps, and inspection reports provide a stronger evidence base for regulatory reporting, contractor monitoring, project planning, and management decision-making. 14. IMPLEMENTATION CONSIDERATIONS Successful implementation requires more than purchasing drone equipment. Utilities and municipalities need a clear operational framework that defines use cases, responsibilities, approvals, safety procedures, data standards, and reporting requirements (Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024; ISO, 2024). Drone operations must comply with applicable aviation regulations, privacy requirements, health and safety obligations, and internal governance processes (South African Civil Aviation Authority, n.d.; Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, 2024). Key implementation requirements include trained pilots, competent data analysts, standard operating procedures, risk assessments, maintenance plans, insurance, secure data storage, and integration with geographic information systems or asset management platforms (South African Civil Aviation Authority, n.d.; ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024). Organisations should also determine whether to build internal drone capacity, outsource specialist services, or adopt a hybrid model.

Data management is particularly important. Drone missions can generate large volumes of imagery and spatial data. Without proper classification, storage, processing, and interpretation, the value of the data may be lost (Ghorbani Bam et al., 2025; WSP, 2026). A structured data workflow should therefore be established from mission planning through to reporting and decision-making (ISO, 2024; Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia, 2024).

15. CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS Despite their benefits, drones are not a complete replacement for conventional engineering inspections, laboratory testing, or detailed condition assessments. They are best understood as a complementary tool that improves the speed, safety, and coverage of data collection. Some defects may still require physical verification, specialist testing, or intrusive investigation. Operational limitations include restricted flight endurance, weather sensitivity, payload constraints, communication limitations, regulatory approvals, no-fly zones, and the need for skilled operators. In urban areas, privacy concerns and public acceptance must also be addressed. In confined spaces such as sewers and tunnels, specialised drones and experienced operators are required to manage collision risks, poor lighting, signal loss, and hazardous conditions. Another challenge is institutional readiness. Organisations may collect drone data but fail to use it effectively if there is no link to maintenance planning, budgeting, engineering design, or management reporting. Therefore, drone adoption should be linked to broader digital transformation and asset management strategies. 16. STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Develop a drone strategy aligned with water and sanitation asset management priorities. 2. Start with high-value use cases such as reservoir inspections, treatment works assessments, sewer overflow monitoring, disaster response, and sanitation mapping. 3. Establish standard operating procedures for flight planning, safety, approvals, community engagement, and data handling. 4. Train internal staff or appoint competent service providers with relevant technical and regulatory experience. 5. Integrate drone outputs with GIS, asset registers, maintenance management systems, and engineering reports. 6. Adopt LiDAR payloads and point cloud workflows for priority assets to create accurate digital twins, three-dimensional asset models, terrain models, and repeatable condition baselines for long-term monitoring. 7. Develop clear digital twin governance standards covering data quality, interoperability, cybersecurity, ownership, version control, model updates, and integration with municipal decision-making processes. 8. Use pilot projects to demonstrate value before scaling the programme across wider operations. 9. Ensure that privacy, data protection, public communication, and ethical considerations are addressed, particularly in residential and informal settlement areas. 10. Combine drone data with ground inspections, laboratory testing, hydraulic modelling, and engineering judgement for robust decisionmaking. 11. Include infrastructure security applications in drone programmes, including perimeter monitoring, alarm verification, remote asset surveillance, and protocols for responding to unauthorised drone activity. 12. Use eThekwini Municipality pilot use cases to demonstrate drone

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value in flood response, reservoir inspection, wastewater monitoring, sanitation mapping, security surveillance, and GIS-based municipal decision-making. 13. Embed climate adaptation objectives into drone programmes by using UAV data to identify flood-prone assets, drought-sensitive water sources, erosion risks, vulnerable settlements, and priority areas for resilient infrastructure investment. 14. Use drone inspection data to support sustainable asset management by linking condition evidence to asset registers, risk ratings, maintenance priorities, renewal planning, and long-term capital budgeting.

17. CONCLUSION Drone technology has become a valuable tool for modernising water and sanitation management. Its ability to collect high-resolution data safely, quickly, and cost-effectively makes it especially relevant in a sector challenged by aging infrastructure, limited resources, climate risks, and increasing service delivery demands. Drones support infrastructure inspection, wastewater monitoring, water quality assessment, sanitation mapping, disaster response, and evidencebased decision-making. However, successful adoption depends on more than the technology itself. It requires regulatory compliance, skilled personnel, sound data governance, integration with existing systems, and clear institutional objectives. When implemented strategically, drones can strengthen preventive maintenance, reduce operational risks, improve environmental compliance, and contribute to more resilient and sustainable water and sanitation services. 18. REFERENCES American Water Works Association. (n.d.). Digital twins. American Water Works Association. Retrieved July 2, 2026. Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. (2024, June 19). Drone operations in South Africa: An overview of the legal landscape. Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. Department of Water and Sanitation. (2025). Revised compulsory national water and sanitation services standards in terms of section 9(1) of the Water Services Act, 1997. Government of South Africa. eThekwini Municipality. (2022). Durban Climate Change Strategy 2022. eThekwini Municipality. Ghorbani Bam, P., Rezaei, N., Roubanis, A., Austin, D., Austin, E., Tarroja, B., Takacs, I., Villez, K., & Rosso, D. (2025). Digital twin applications in the water sector: A review. Water, 17(20), 2957. https://doi.org/10.3390/ w17202957 Hamzah, A., Aqlan, F., & Baidya, S. (2024). Drone-based digital twins for water quality monitoring: A systematic review. Digital Twins and Applications, 1(2), 131–160. https://doi.org/10.1049/dgt2.12021 Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia. (2024). International infrastructure management manual (6th ed.). Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia. International Organization for Standardization. (2024). ISO 55000:2024 Asset management—Vocabulary, overview and principles. International Organization for Standardization. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2022). Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844 Long, C., Zhang, J., Xia, X., Liu, D., Chen, L., & Yan, X. (2025). High-resolution water quality monitoring of small reservoirs using UAV-based multispectral imaging. Water, 17(11), 1566. https://doi.org/10.3390/ w17111566

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Lu, Q., Si, W., Wei, L., Li, Z., Xia, Z., Ye, S., & Xia, Y. (2021). Retrieval of water quality from UAV-borne hyperspectral imagery: A comparative study of machine learning algorithms. Remote Sensing, 13(19), 3928. https://doi. org/10.3390/rs13193928 Sibanda, M., Mutanga, O., Chimonyo, V. G. P., Clulow, A. D., Shoko, C., Mazvimavi, D., Dube, T., & Mabhaudhi, T. (2021). Application of drone technologies in surface water resources monitoring and assessment: A systematic review of progress, challenges, and opportunities in the Global South. Drones, 5(3), 84. https://doi.org/10.3390/drones5030084 South African Civil Aviation Authority. (n.d.). Unmanned aircraft systems. South African Civil Aviation Authority. Retrieved July 2, 2026. Wasehun, E. T., Hashemi-Beni, L., & Di Vittorio, C. A. (2024). UAV and satellite remote sensing for inland water quality assessments: A literature review. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 196, Article 277. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10661-024-12342-6 World Bank. (2024). Water security and climate change: Insights from Country Climate and Development Reports. World Bank. https://doi. org/10.1596/42497 WSP. (2026, May 20). Digital twins in water: Turning infrastructure data into better decisions. WSP.

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PAPER 16

RETHINKING SYNTHETIC DESIGN STORMS: EVALUATING CLIPPED SCS-SA AND BIMODAL RAINFALL EVENTS FOR SMALL URBAN CATCHMENTS IN ETHEKWINI

J.D. Spooner1, I. Loots1 and J.C. Smithers2 1 Department of Civil Engineering, University of Pretoria 2 Centre for Water Resources Research and School of Engineering

ABSTRACT Rapid urbanisation and recent catastrophic flood events in eThekwini, South Africa, have intensified demands on existing stormwater infrastructure. Current local municipal guidelines rely heavily on assumed minimum times of concentration, which subsequently result in the widespread adoption of 20 to 30-minute synthetic design storm durations. Furthermore, these guidelines focus exclusively on single-peak synthetic design storms. This conventional approach ignores the hydrological reality of considerably longer-duration storms and the occurrence of complex, multi-peaked bimodal events, potentially leading to severely underdesigned infrastructure. To address these critical gaps, this paper evaluates existing synthetic design storm methods and presents improved, regionally appropriate design storms for small urban catchments in eThekwini. Using

5-minute rainfall data sourced from 36 local rainfall stations with at least 10 years of reliable records, over 1000 major rainfall events (recurrence interval ≥ 2 years) were extracted and analysed using custom Python algorithms. The analysis reveals that bimodal storms comprise approximately 12% of all observed major storm events, representing a significant and previously overlooked component of the region’s rainfall record. Crucially, the observed median durations for these major events are 130 minutes, and 298 minutes for the subset of bimodal storms, starkly contrasting with the 20 to 30-minute durations commonly assumed in municipal design. The paper systematically evaluates the performance of standard singlepeak methods, including Rectangular, Triangular, and an adjusted version of the standard 24-hour SCS-SA Type 1, 2, 3 and 4 design storms that were clipped to the observed storm durations. Performance is measured against observed single-peak events using Mean Absolute Relative Error (MARE), Peak Factor, and Volume Factor metrics. For bimodal events, two novel bimodal methodologies, Bimodal-Same RI and Bimodal-Split R, are developed and evaluated against the observed bimodal storm records.

FIGURE 1: Graphical representation of 13 April 2003 bimodal storm event in eThekwini (Morris 2003)

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The findings unequivocally demonstrate the superior performance of the clipped SCS-SA method (specifically SCS-SA Type 1) in accurately representing observed single-peak storm events. For bimodal events, the Bimodal-Split R method successfully captures the bimodal shape and volume without the severe overestimation observed with other methods. Ultimately, the paper provides actionable engineering recommendations for South African stormwater practice, advocating for a fundamental shift away from arbitrary assumed durations toward evidence-based median durations, and the formal adoption of both the clipped SCS-SA Type 1 and Bimodal Split R design storms to ensure future infrastructure resilience.

INTRODUCTION eThekwini has experienced devastating flood events in recent years, including severe events in 2017, 2019, and 2022, which caused catastrophic economic and social losses. Estimated economic losses caused by these flood events escalated rapidly, from R576 million in 2017, to R1.8 billion in 2019, and exceeding R8 billion during the catastrophic April 2022 floods (eThekwini Municipality 2022). These events highlight an urgent need to review current stormwater design procedures to ensure future infrastructure is robust and capable of managing intense rainfall. Current municipal practices in eThekwini rely heavily on the Rational Method for minor urban stormwater systems, explicitly stipulating a minimum time of concentration of 10 to 15 minutes for small, developed urban catchments (eThekwini Coastal Stormwater & Catchment Management Department 2018). Consequently, stormwater engineers typically constrain design storm durations to approximately 20 to 30 minutes in many small catchments, drastically underestimating actual storm behavior. This standard municipal methodology exclusively assumes a single-peak storm event. However, observed extreme floods, such as the devastating 2003 Umbogintwini Industrial Complex flood, have been driven by complex, double-peaked bimodal storms (Morris 2003). During this event, two distinct 2-hour storms occurred in close succession, resulting in initial rainfall saturating the catchment and drastically amplifying the runoff volumes and flow rates generated from the second peak. The resulting flood damage was equivalent to a 1:70-year to 1:100-year runoff event, despite the individual peaks having substantially lower return periods, as shown in Figure 1 (Morris 2003, Ninham Shand Consulting Services 2006). Bimodal storms are rarely accounted for in typical synthetic design storm methods. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate existing synthetic design storms and develop improved methodologies by addressing five critical questions: (a) How common are bimodal storms within the observed dataset? (b) How do observed storm durations compare with those commonly assumed in design? (c) Which design storm best represents observed single-peak storm behavior? (d) How well do the developed bimodal design storms represent observed bimodal storm behaviour? (e) What are the implications for stormwater and hydrological design practice in South Africa? METHODOLOGY Major event isolation To establish a reliable observed dataset for urban drainage analysis in eThekwini, 5-minute rainfall records were sourced from the municipality’s Coastal, Stormwater and Catchment Management (CSCM) division. Quality control was performed using strict objective criteria: only stations with a record length of at least 10 years, and less than 10% missing data during

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the critical wet months were selected, resulting in a filtered dataset of 36 active stations. Erroneous data, such as duplicate entries, prolonged identical high readings indicating rain sensor malfunctions, and isolated 5-minute rainfall depths exceeding the 200-year design rainfall, were identified and removed by comparing annual totals with Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) values obtained from the Design Rainfall Estimation for South Africa (DRESA) software (Smithers & Schulze 2003), which incorporates MAP raster data from Lynch (2004). While a previous pilot study in Gauteng by Mouton et al. (2022) utilized a Java program named Rain-Pro (Munro 2021) and Microsoft Excel for temporal disaggregation, these tools struggled with processing speed, bimodal event identification, and data volume when applied to the eThekwini dataset. To address these functional limitations, a novel Python program, STORM ID, was developed to automate much of the data processing. To segment continuous rainfall records into discrete, independent storm events, a Maximum Dry Period (MDP) threshold was applied, representing the dry period between rainfall spells (RestrepoPosada & Eagleson 1982; Mouton et al. 2022). While historical MDP values range from 1 hour up to 6 hours (Huff 1967; Ramlall 2020), this study performed a local sensitivity analysis on MDPs of 15, 30, 60, and 120 minutes. An initial MDP of 15 minutes aligned with the typical response time of small catchments in eThekwini. However, increasing the MDP beyond 30 minutes resulted in a notable decrease in the correlation between total rainfall depth and storm duration, as well as the premature merging of independent storms. Consequently, an MDP of 30 minutes was selected to isolate independent events while successfully preserving the internal dry spells (saddle points) characteristic of bimodal storm profiles. To isolate hydrologically significant major events, the extracted storms were filtered using three physical criteria: (a) Minimum Rainfall Depth (MRD): A threshold of 10 mm was applied to exclude minor, transient rain spells, consistent with the methodology of Mouton et al. (2022) and Spooner et al. (2026). (b) Storm Duration Constraints: Only events with durations between 15 minutes and 24 hours were retained, excluding highly transient storm spells (under 15 minutes) with only 1 or 2 data points which force the peak to occur at the start or end of the event, and enabling standard clipping of 24-hour SCS-SA design storms. (c) Minimum Recurrence Interval (MRI): An MRI threshold of 2 years was adopted, consistent with Mouton et al. (2022), to exclude non-critical events. While the eThekwini (2018) Stormwater Design Guidelines consider a 3-year or higher return period for drainage infrastructure, a 2-year MRI was practically adopted because DRESA design rainfall values are only available starting at a 2-year recurrence interval (Smithers & Schulze 2003). Applying this MRI threshold successfully eliminated over 90% of insignificant extracted storm events. To determine the recurrence interval (RI) for each isolated storm event, a moving-window extraction was used to identify maximum rainfall depths over standard durations (5 to 120 minutes), which were then compared against station-specific design rainfall values from DRESA (Smithers & Schulze 2003). Using this methodology, the STORM ID program isolated a final dataset of 1071 major rainfall events in eThekwini, which had a mean storm duration of 255 minutes (median duration of 130 minutes), and a mean RI of 10 years (median RI of 4 years). Bimodal event isolation Following the isolation of the major events, these major events were analysed to determine the portion of events that had a bimodal distribution. To achieve this, major storm events with a bimodal rainfall

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distribution first needed to be identified. Limited previous research exists on methodologies for this purpose, with previous studies using visual inspection for bimodal storm identification (Paton et al. 2024), a subjective approach that introduces bias and limits reproducibility. Therefore, Spooner et al. (2026) developed a novel approach to systematically isolate storm events with a bimodal distribution, using a set of objective criteria. A summary of the STORM ID-BIMODAL program criteria used to isolate bimodal events is shown below, with an accompanying graphical representation shown in Figure 4.

utilise constant, time-related shape parameters derived directly from regional observed data: a mean time-to-saddle ratio ( ) and mean dimensionless times-to-peak for the first ( ) and second ( ) embedded storms. These ratios divide the bimodal storm duration ( ) into two distinct, successive triangular events ( and ) separated by an inter-peak saddle point ( ). Figure 3 shows a graphical representation of the time-related shape parameters used in the development of the bimodal design storms.

These specific mathematical criteria and variable thresholds ensured that true bimodal events were robustly isolated from both single-peak (unimodal) and complex multimodal storms.

FIGURE 3: Typical bimodal triangular hyetograph showing time-related shape parameters used in the development of the bimodal design storm.

FIGURE 2: Graphical representation of criteria used to isolate bimodal events. Design storm methods This study evaluates specific single-peak design storms commonly used in hydrological practice, specifically: the Rectangular Design Storm (Mulvaney 1851), Triangular Design Storm (Yen & Chow 1980), and the standard SCS-SA Type 1, 2, 3, and 4 distributions (Schmidt & Schulze 1987). Because the standard SCS-SA curves were originally developed strictly for 24-hour durations, applying them directly to shorter events artificially compresses 24 hours of rainfall into a shorter window, causing severe intensity distortions. To resolve this, a Clipped SCS-SA method was applied. Using the technique proposed by Haan et al. (1994), this clipping method dynamically extracts the specific portion of the 24-hour distribution that contains the highest cumulative rainfall for the desired duration, effectively preserving the actual storm shape and relative intensity distribution without artificial compression. For example, keeping the 30 minutes before and after the peak to extract a 60-minute storm. Recalculating cumulative rainfall ratios within this isolated window discards the outer low-intensity tails. This approach successfully preserves the original storm shape and relative intensity distribution without artificial temporal compression and allowed the SCS-SA design storms to be compared to the observed storm events with varying durations. To address bimodal events, Spooner et al. (2026) developed two novel bimodal triangular design storms, Bimodal-Same RI and Bimodal-Split R, drawing on the bimodal triangular profiles of Lambourne and Stephenson (1987) and Yen and Chow’s (1980) triangular design storm. Both methods

While sharing identical timing, the two bimodal methods differ fundamentally in how they calculate rainfall volume and peak intensity: (a) Bimodal-Same RI: Assumes both embedded triangular storms share the exact recurrence interval of the total isolated bimodal event. As a result, their peak intensities differ. While this method successfully replicates the magnitude of separate storm peaks, assuming a matching extreme RI for both successive peaks often leads to substantial overestimations of total storm volume and runoff (Spooner et al. 2026). (b) Bimodal-Split R: Proportionally splits the total rainfall volume of the entire bimodal event across the two embedded triangular storms based on their individual durations. This distribution forces equal peak intensities for both embedded storms, preventing severe volume overestimation (Spooner et al. 2026).

RESULTS Prevalence and significance of bimodal storms A total of 1071 major storm events were isolated across the 36 stations using the 30-minute MDP criterion. By systematically evaluating peaks, valleys, and saddle points using the custom STORM ID-BIMODAL Python tool, it was determined that 128 of these events exhibited a distinct bimodal distribution. Consequently, bimodal storms comprise approximately 12% of the observed major events dataset. This confirms that double-peaked events are not isolated anomalies but rather a frequent component of the local rainfall record in eThekwini. Furthermore, bimodal events are substantially more severe than typical single-peak storms. The mean recurrence interval for bimodal events was calculated at 22 years, which is more than double the mean recurrence interval of 10 years calculated for all major events combined. Bimodal events are disproportionately represented at extreme return periods; notably, 5.5% of all bimodal events had an RI greater than 200 years, compared to just 0.7% for the full dataset. The distribution of recurrence intervals for bimodal events isolated in this study is shown in Figure 4.

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Observed vs. Assumed storm durations Current eThekwini guidelines enforce assumed minimum design storm durations of 20 to 30 minutes for small urban catchments, derived directly from simplified minimum time of concentration rules (eThekwini Coastal Stormwater & Catchment Management Department 2018). However, as demonstrated by the dataset, the observed median storm duration for all major events isolated in this study is 130 minutes, while the mean duration stretches to 255 minutes. The highest frequency of major events recorded had durations ranging from 30 to 90 minutes, completely eclipsing the 20-minute design assumptions. The discrepancy is even more severe for complex, multi-peaked systems. Bimodal events exhibited an observed median duration of 298 minutes and a mean of 405 minutes, with the 75th percentile of bimodal storms lasting over 10 hours, as shown in Figure 5. These findings confirm that relying strictly on a catchment’s minimum time of concentration significantly underestimates the true length and total volumetric load of local rainfall events. In practice, underestimating the total volumetric load can lead directly to the underdesign of stormwater attenuation facilities and piped reticulation networks, leaving critical urban infrastructure vulnerable to capacity exceedance and severe localised flooding.

FIGURE 7: Box-whisker plot of PF values for each single-peak design storm method

FIGURE 8: Box-whisker plot of VF values for each single-peak design storm method

FIGURE 5: Cumulative frequency distribution of all major and bimodal events’ storm durations Performance of single-peak design storms The performance of the single-peak design storm methods was systematically evaluated against the 1072 isolated major rainfall events. For each observed event, corresponding design storms were generated using the same storm duration and RI and subsequently compared with the observed events. Three evaluation metrics were employed: the Mean Absolute Relative Error (MARE), which quantified differences in rainfall intensity distribution across all time steps; the Peak Factor (PF), which

FIGURE 6: Box-whisker plot of MARE values for each single-peak design storm method

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compared the maximum rainfall intensity of each design storm with the observed peak intensity; and the Volume Factor (VF), which compared the total cumulative rainfall depth of each design storm with that of the observed event. The distributions of these performance metrics for all design storm methods are presented as box and whisker plots in Figure 6, Figure 7 and Figure 8, illustrating the mean (), median, interquartile range, and minimum and maximum values. The SCS-SA Type 1 design storm (SCS-SA T1), when clipped to storm duration using the Haan et al. (1994) extraction technique, demonstrated superior performance across all of the evaluation metrics used. It yielded the lowest overall temporal error with a mean MARE of 2.21, indicating it was the most consistent single-peak method for replicating the temporal distribution of observed rainfall intensities in eThekwini. In terms of peak intensity, SCS-SA T1 produced a mean Peak Factor (PF) of 1.60 and a median PF of 1.32. While both the RECT (mean PF of 0.26) and TRI (mean PF of 0.63) methods consistently and significantly underestimated peak intensities, SCS-SA T1 provided a conservative, design-appropriate overestimation of the peak. Furthermore, SCS-SA T1 proved to be the most accurate method for estimating total rainfall volumes, achieving a mean Volume Factor (VF) of 1.06 and a median VF of 0.99. This means it almost perfectly replicated actual storm volumes without inducing the severe volumetric overestimations characteristic of the regional SCS-SA Type 2 (mean VF of 1.40), Type 3, and Type 4 distributions. Performance of bimodal design storms To assess their practical viability for engineering applications, the developed bimodal synthetic design storms were evaluated against the

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FIGURE 9: Box-whisker plot of MARE values for each bimodal and single-peak design storm method across each bimodal event

FIGURE 10: Box-whisker plot of PF values for each bimodal and single-peak design storm method across each bimodal event

Factor (PF), and Volume Factor (VF) calculated for each event. In addition, the Bimodal-Same RI and Bimodal-Split R design storm methods were compared directly with the conventional single peak design storm methods to evaluate whether they provided a more accurate representation of the observed bimodal rainfall events. The distributions of these performance metrics for all design storm methods are presented in Figure 9, Figure 10 and Figure 11 as box and whisker plots in, illustrating the mean (), median, interquartile range, and minimum and maximum values. The Bimodal-Same RI method most accurately replicated the magnitudes of the two embedded rainfall peaks, achieving mean Peak Factors (PF) of 0.93 and 0.89 for the primary and secondary peaks, respectively. By applying the event recurrence interval independently to both embedded storms, the method successfully captured the peak intensities of double peak systems. However, this independent scaling substantially overestimated the total storm volume, producing a mean Volume Factor (VF) of 1.70 and the second highest MARE of all methods evaluated (2.92). Conversely, the Bimodal-Split R method prioritised volumetric accuracy by proportionally distributing the total design rainfall volume between the two embedded storms according to their relative durations. This approach achieved a highly accurate mean VF of 1.07 (median = 1.04) while substantially improving overall shape representation, returning a mean MARE of 1.81. Although enforcing equal peak intensities resulted in an underestimation of individual peak magnitudes (mean PF = 0.56), the method successfully preserved the total event volume. Compared with conventional single peak design storms, the bimodal methods demonstrated clear structural advantages for representing double peak rainfall events. In particular, the BimodalSplit R method provided the most balanced representation by accurately reproducing total rainfall volume and storm timing while explicitly accounting for the double peak structure that cannot be represented by conventional singlepeak design storms.

CONCLUSIONS Based on the comprehensive evaluation of 1072 major rainfall events in the eThekwini region, this study demonstrates that bimodal rainfall events are a frequent and hydrologically significant component of the local climate, FIGURE 11: Box-whisker plot of VF values for each bimodal and single-peak design accounting for approximately 12% of all major storm method across each bimodal event storm events. These events are not isolated anomalies but represent highly severe, long duration storm systems, 128 isolated observed bimodal rainfall events. Performance was assessed with a mean recurrence interval of 22 years, more than double the 10using the same evaluation metrics employed for the single peak design year mean recurrence interval of the complete dataset. The analysis storm methods, with the Mean Absolute Relative Error (MARE), Peak

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further revealed that observed storm durations substantially exceed those assumed in current municipal design practice. Median durations of 130 minutes for single-peak events and 298 minutes for bimodal events are considerably greater than the 20-to-30-minute design storm durations currently recommended in local guidelines. Consequently, the continued use of minimum times of concentration to define storm duration is likely to underestimate storm persistence, runoff volumes, and the capacity requirements of stormwater infrastructure. Among the conventional single-peak design storm methods, the clipped SCS-SA Type 1 design storm, developed by shortening the standard SCSSA Type 1 distribution to observed storm durations using the Haan et al. (1994) clipping technique, provided the most representative simulation of observed rainfall events. This method consistently outperformed the alternative distributions by closely reproducing both the temporal rainfall distribution and total storm volume, achieving a mean Volume Factor of 1.06. For bimodal rainfall events, the newly developed Bimodal-Split R design storm provided the most balanced representation. Using constant time-related shape parameters, together with a proportional allocation of total rainfall volume between the two embedded storms, the method accurately reproduced the temporal structure and total rainfall volume of observed bimodal events while achieving a mean Volume Factor of 1.07. In contrast, the Bimodal-Same RI method, although accurately reproducing peak rainfall intensities, overestimated total storm volumes by approximately 70% because the event recurrence interval was applied independently to both embedded storms. Overall, the findings indicate that current stormwater design practice in eThekwini underestimates both storm duration and the complexity of local rainfall by relying on short duration, single-peak design storms. Incorporating evidence-based storm durations together with the clipped SCS-SA Type 1 design storm for single-peak events and the Bimodal-Split R design storm for bimodal events would provide a more representative basis for hydrological design, improving estimates of runoff volume and enhancing the resilience of urban stormwater infrastructure to major flood events.

RECOMMENDATIONS To ensure that future stormwater infrastructure is robust, resilient, and scientifically grounded, the following updates are recommended for local municipal engineering practice: (a) Update storm durations used: Practitioners must formally move away from fixed 20- to 30-minute design storm durations derived solely from assumed minimum time of concentration rules. The observed regional data demonstrates that these assumptions drastically underestimate true storm persistence and total volumetric loads. Local stormwater infrastructure designs should be calibrated against actual rainfall data. It is recommended to implement an evidence-based baseline median duration of 130 minutes for single-peak events, and 298 minutes for complex bimodal events. (b) Formally incorporate the clipped SCS-SA T1 method: The clipped SCSSA Type 1 design storm distribution, utilising the Haan et al. (1994) extraction technique, should be formally adopted into municipal design guidelines. This method provides the most representative simulation of observed single-peak rainfall intensity distributions and storm volumes without causing the severe intensity distortions of standard unclipped curves. (c) Integrate the Bimodal-Split R method for critical systems: To safeguard catchments against complex, capacity-exceeding rainfall patterns, the Bimodal-Split R method should be formally adopted. This methodology

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should be executed in parallel with single-peak modeling during the hydraulic design and stress-testing of critical attenuation structures, piped reticulation networks, and major drainage infrastructure.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the Water Research Commission (WRC) for providing financial support for this research under project C2023/202401295. We also thank the eThekwini Municipality Coastal Stormwater and Catchment Management (CSCM) Department for providing the short duration rainfall data used in this study. Special thanks are extended to Geoff Tooley and Angus Gowar for their valuable assistance, technical input and support throughout the research. The authors also acknowledge Obscape for supplying rainfall monitoring equipment and data that contributed to this work. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the supporting organisations. REFERENCES eThekwini Coastal Stormwater & Catchment Management Department 2018. Guidelines and Policy for the Design of Stormwater Drainage and Stormwater Management Systems. Coastal, Stormwater and Catchment Management Division, eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa. eThekwini Municipality 2022. The April 2022 Floods in KwaZulu-Natal. Disaster Report, eThekwini Municipality, Durban, South Africa. Haan CT, Barfield BJ & Hayes JC 1994. Design hydrology and sedimentology for small catchments. Academic Press, San Diego, California. Huff FA 1967. Time distribution of rainfall in heavy storms. Water Resources Research 3 (4): 1007-1019. Lambourne J & Stephenson D 1987. Model study of the effect of temporal storm distributions on peak discharges and volumes. Hydrological Sciences Journal 32 (2): 215-226. Lynch SD 2004. Development of a raster database of annual, monthly and daily rainfall for southern Africa. Water Research Commission Report No. 1156/1/04, Pretoria, South Africa. Morris M 2003. Assessment of 13 April 2003 Storm Recurrence Interval at Umbogintwini Industrial Complex. SRK Consulting Engineers & Scientists, eThekwini, South Africa. Mouton J, Loots I & Smithers J 2022. Assessment and Development of Synthetic Design Storms for Use in Urban Environments: Gauteng Pilot Study. Water SA 48 (4): 374-385. Mulvaney TJ 1851. On the use of self-registering rain and flood gauges in making observations of the relations of rainfall and flood discharges in a given catchment. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland 4: 19-31. Munro J 2021. Rain-Pro: A Java program for temporal disaggregation and processing of short-duration rainfall data. [Software]. Ninham Shand Consulting Services 2006. Investigation into Correlation between Recorded Rainfall and Synthetic Design Storms within the eThekwini Municipal Area. Report to eThekwini Municipality Coastal, Stormwater and Catchment Management Branch, Durban, South Africa. Paton E, Tügel F, Eckmann L, Joseph B & Hinkelmann R 2024. Compilation method of a catalogue of reasonable worst-case rainfall series for flash flood simulations of short, convective rainstorms. Journal of Hydrology 635: 131091. Ramlall R 2020. Assessing the performance of techniques for disaggregating daily rainfall for design flood estimation in South Africa. Unpublished MSc Thesis, School of Engineering, University of KwaZuluNatal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

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Restrepo-Posada PJ & Eagleson PS 1982. Identification of independent rainstorms. Journal of Hydrology 55 (1-4): 303-319. Schmidt E & Schulze R 1987. SCS-based Design Runoff. ACRU Report No. 24. Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Smithers JC & Schulze R 2003. Design rainfall and flood estimation in South Africa. Water Research Commission Report No. 1060/1/03, Pretoria, South Africa. Spooner JD, Loots I & Smithers JC 2026. Development and assessment of a bimodal synthetic design storm using observed rainfall data from eThekwini, South Africa. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, Volume 67. Yen BC & Chow VT 1980. Design hyetographs for small drainage structures. Journal of the Hydraulics Division 106 (6): 1055-1076.

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PAPER 17

BLUEPRINTS REIMAGINED: PRESERVING MUNICIPAL LANDFILL AIRSPACE AS A STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET – WHY THE CHEAPEST TENDER OFTEN CREATES THE MOST EXPENSIVE LANDFILL Leon Grobbelaar Raalebborg Environmental (Pty) Ltd

ABSTRACT Modern municipal engineering often falls into the trap of viewing landfill management through a narrow lens of immediate disposal, overlooking the looming financial liabilities of site closure and post-closure rehabilitation. This paper argues for a transition away from a revenuecentric “gate fee” model toward a strategy of Optimal Operating Costs. By reimagining the landfill blueprint as a managed asset, municipalities can prioritize targeted operational spending to mitigate long-term fiscal and environmental risks. Central to this approach is the effective management of landfill airspace. (Airspace meaning the remaining engineered volume within a landfill that is available for the safe disposal of waste). As the landfill’s most valuable and finite asset, every cubic metre of airspace can only be used once. Its preservation depends on sound engineering design and operational practices, including efficient waste compaction, disciplined cell development, and appropriate cover application, in accordance with the principles contained in South Africa’s National Norms and Standards for Disposal of Waste to Landfill (GN R636 of 2013) and the Minimum Requirements for Waste Disposal by Landfill (DWAF, 2nd Edition, 1998). The core of “judicious” management lies in understanding that suboptimal spending today creates exponential costs tomorrow. Many municipalities fail to account for the true cost of airspace depletion. Every cubic meter lost to poor compaction or inefficient cell design—often the result of hiring incompetent contractors under the “cheapest price” principle—is a direct hit to the municipal balance sheet. Furthermore, the cost of remediating groundwater contamination caused by substandard daily operations far exceeds the initial investment in technical integrity. Prioritizing optimal operation from “day one” offers three critical riskmitigation advantages: • Airspace Preservation: Using professional-grade plant and skilled operators to maximize the lifespan of the existing site, deferring the massive capital cost of new land acquisition. • Liability Smoothing: Implementing phased, incremental rehabilitation to avoid the “financial cliff” of a lump-sum closure liability that many municipalities cannot afford. • Environmental Shielding: Maintaining rigorous technical standards to protect the Accounting Officer from the legal and financial consequences of non-compliance and water source contamination. This presentation challenges municipal leaders to shift focus from “waste burial” to strategic risk mitigation. By optimizing daily operating expenditures, municipalities can transition from managing an environmental burden to overseeing a stable, compliant infrastructure asset.

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INTRODUCTION For decades, municipal landfill facilities have been viewed primarily as waste disposal sites. Success has traditionally been measured through waste tonnages received, regulatory compliance and annual operating expenditure. While these indicators remain important, they fail to recognise the true value of landfill infrastructure and the growing financial risks associated with diminishing disposal capacity, increasing environmental obligations and long-term closure liabilities. South African municipalities face increasing pressure from rising waste generation rates, ageing infrastructure, stricter environmental regulation and constrained capital budgets. Simultaneously, the development of new landfill infrastructure has become increasingly expensive due to more stringent engineering standards, environmental authorisations, groundwater protection requirements and post-closure obligations. Historically, landfill management focused on the efficient burial of waste. Modern landfill economics require a fundamental shift in thinking. The most valuable component of a landfill is not the waste it receives, but the airspace it preserves. Unlike many other forms of municipal infrastructure, landfill airspace is finite and cannot easily be replaced once exhausted. Additional capacity typically requires significant capital investment, extensive environmental approvals and lengthy implementation periods. Every operational decision therefore influences not only current landfill performance, but also future municipal expenditure, environmental liability and infrastructure resilience. This paper argues that municipal landfills should be managed as strategic infrastructure assets and that landfill airspace should be regarded as a measurable municipal resource requiring active preservation. Operational decisions, procurement approaches and diversion initiatives should therefore be evaluated according to their ability to preserve airspace, extend landfill lifespan, reduce future liabilities and defer capital expenditure. The paper further demonstrates that the lowest-cost landfill operation may not necessarily represent the lowest-cost landfill solution when lifecycle infrastructure value, closure liabilities and future replacement disposal costs are considered. THE HIDDEN MUNICIPAL ASSET: AIRSPACE Airspace as Infrastructure Capacity Every landfill contains a finite volume of authorised disposal capacity. This airspace represents a strategic infrastructure asset that is progressively consumed throughout the operational life of the facility. Municipal infrastructure assets are generally valued according to the service capacity they provide. Reservoirs provide storage capacity, wastewater treatment works provide treatment capacity, and road networks provide transport capacity. Similarly, landfill facilities provide disposal capacity in the form of authorised airspace. Consistent with the principles of GRAP 17

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(Accounting Standards Board, 2021) and the National Treasury Municipal Asset Management Guideline (National Treasury, 2021), landfill airspace should be managed as an infrastructure asset based on the service potential it provides, rather than solely as a remaining physical volume. This approach aligns asset management decisions with long-term service delivery, lifecycle costing, and financial sustainability

TABLE 1: Municipal Infrastructure Capacity Metrics Infrastructure Asset

Capacity Metric

Dam or Reservoir

Storage Volume

Wastewater Treatment Works

Treatment Capacity

Road Network

Traffic Carrying Capacity

Landfill Facility

Airspace Capacity

Unlike many other municipal assets, landfill airspace cannot easily be expanded once exhausted. Additional disposal capacity typically requires environmental authorisation, engineering design, specialist construction, public participation processes and significant capital investment. The preservation of landfill airspace therefore creates measurable municipal value by extending facility lifespan, deferring future capital expenditure and reducing exposure to replacement disposal costs. Airspace Loss as Asset Depreciation The consumption of landfill airspace is unavoidable. However, the rate at which airspace is consumed is heavily influenced by operational performance. Practices that accelerate airspace depletion include: • Inadequate waste compaction. • Excessive cover material utilisation. • Poor cell planning. • Inefficient waste placement. • Failure to divert suitable waste streams. • Uncontrolled working face management. Each of these factors reduces the quantity of waste that can be accommodated within the authorised disposal footprint. From an infrastructure management perspective, unnecessary airspace consumption should be regarded as a form of asset depreciation. Every cubic metre of airspace lost through poor operational practices represents a permanent reduction in municipal infrastructure capacity and may accelerate the need for costly replacement disposal infrastructure. Airspace Creation Value The cost of creating engineered landfill airspace has increased significantly due to increasingly stringent environmental and engineering requirements. Under the norms and standards for disposal to landfill (GNR 636) landfills are classified based on the level of environmental risk. Class A: High Risk Class B: Moderate Risk. Class C: Low Risk Class D: Minimal Risk.

TABLE 2: Airspace Creation Cost Benchmarks (2024-2026) Airspace Capacity (m³)

This paper is focused on Class B landfills for municipal solid waste. The benchmark data indicates that the cost of developing engineered landfill airspace ranges between approximately R92/m³ and R347/m³ depending on site-specific conditions, scale and engineering requirements and infrastructure. For strategic planning purposes, an indicative creation value of approximately R150/m³ may be adopted as a representative benchmark. Airspace Asset Management Framework The primary service provided by a landfill is authorised disposal capacity in the form of landfill airspace. The preservation of this capacity should therefore become a primary asset management objective. An Airspace Asset Management Framework is proposed whereby landfill performance is evaluated according to its ability to: • Preserve authorised airspace. • Extend landfill lifespan. • Delay future capital expenditure. • Reduce closure liability growth. • Defer replacement disposal costs. • Improve municipal resilience. This framework positions landfill management within conventional municipal infrastructure asset management practice rather than solely within waste management operations.

AIRSPACE LIFECYCLE VALUE Beyond Construction Cost The value of landfill airspace extends beyond the capital cost required to create disposal capacity. Every cubic metre consumed also contributes towards future closure and rehabilitation obligations. Historically, landfill infrastructure has often been evaluated solely in terms of development and operating costs. Modern municipal accounting standards and environmental regulations require a broader perspective that incorporates future rehabilitation liabilities and post-closure obligations. Closure Liability Allocation A recent closure cost estimate prepared for a Class B-lined municipal landfill with approximately 3.5 million m³ of authorised airspace estimated a final capping obligation of approximately R84.9 million. When allocated across the authorised disposal capacity: R84.93 million ÷ 3.5 million m³ = R24.27/m³ This indicates that every cubic metre of landfill airspace consumed carries an associated future closure liability of approximately R24/m³ before consideration of post-closure groundwater monitoring, leachate management, landfill gas management and long-term environmental maintenance requirements. Airspace Lifecycle Value Every cubic metre of airspace consumed therefore carries both an infrastructure value and a future rehabilitation obligation.

TABLE 3: Airspace lifecycle value model

Facility

Capital Cost (R million)

Facility A

115.0

1.25 million

R92/m³

Facility B

47.5

545 000

R87/m³

Facility C

110.0

1.1 million

R100/m³

Facility D

93.97

271 000

R347/m³

Cost per m³

Component

Value

Airspace Creation Value

R150/m³

Closure Liability Allocation

R24/m³

Airspace Lifecycle Value

R174/m³

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Airspace Asset Value A landfill with 96 604 m³ of remaining authorised airspace possesses an indicative airspace asset value of: 96 604 m³ × R174/m³ = R16.81 million

TABLE 4: Measured Density Benchmarks

If poor operational practices result in the unnecessary loss of 15% of the remaining airspace: 14 491 m³ × R174/m³ = R2.52 million of municipal infrastructure value destroyed. This illustrates how operational decisions directly influence municipal infrastructure value and future financial exposure. Strategic Airspace Replacement Value While Airspace Lifecycle Value represents the historic cost of creating and closing landfill capacity, municipalities approaching landfill exhaustion face a different economic reality. Where municipalities become dependent on a Metropolitan-area regional landfill facility, disposal costs may exceed R750/t. At a representative landfill density of approximately 950 kg/m³ this equates to approximately R713/m³. This Strategic Airspace Replacement Value substantially exceeds the historic lifecycle value of the airspace itself and becomes increasingly important as landfill capacity declines.

THE CHEAPEST TENDER PARADOX Lowest Cost versus Lowest Lifecycle Cost Municipal procurement systems are designed to promote transparency, competitiveness and value for money. However, landfill operating contracts are frequently evaluated and awarded based primarily on annual operating expenditure rather than total lifecycle cost. The true lifecycle cost of landfill disposal extends far beyond the annual operating contract and includes: Lifecycle Landfill Cost = Operating Cost + Airspace Value Destroyed + Closure Liability Growth + Future Disposal Replacement Cost + Deferred Capital Requirements Traditional procurement approaches frequently compare only operating expenditure while overlooking the remaining cost drivers. Consequently, the cheapest operating contract may ultimately become the most expensive landfill solution. This approach is consistent with the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act (Act No. 56 of 2003), which requires municipalities to utilise public resources effectively, efficiently and economically, ensuring that decisions deliver value for money across the full lifecycle of municipal infrastructure rather than focusing solely on the lowest initial cost. OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE AND AIRSPACE PRESERVATION The Importance of Density Landfill density is one of the most important indicators of operational efficiency. Higher waste densities allow greater quantities of waste to be accommodated within the same authorised disposal volume, thereby extending landfill lifespan and delaying future capital expenditure. Conversely, poor compaction accelerates airspace consumption and reduces the useful life of the facility. Measured density data from four municipal landfill facilities operating under South African conditions demonstrates the significant variation that can be achieved through operational management.

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Facility

Average Density

Facility A

924 kg/m³

Facility B

980 kg/m³

Facility C

1 050 kg/m³

Facility D

1 100 kg/m³

These densities were achieved using 28-ton landfill compactors under normal South African operating conditions. Airspace Preservation Through Improved Density To illustrate the practical impact of operational performance, consider a landfill receiving 100 000 tonnes of waste. At a density of 924 kg/m³: 100 000 ÷ 0.924 = 108 225 m³ consumed. At a density of 1 100 kg/m³: 100 000 ÷ 1.100 = 90 909 m³ consumed. Difference: 17 316 m³ preserved. Using an Airspace Lifecycle Value of R174/m³: 17 316 × R174 = R3.01 million of infrastructure value preserved. Strategic Replacement Cost Perspective The economic significance of airspace preservation becomes even more apparent when future replacement disposal costs are considered. Where municipalities exhaust available landfill capacity and become dependent on external disposal facilities, disposal costs may exceed R750/t. At an average landfill density of approximately 950 kg/m³ this equates to approximately R713/m³. Using the previous density example: 17 316 m³ × R713 = R12.35 million of future replacement disposal costs potentially avoided. This demonstrates that landfill operations should be viewed not merely as waste management activities but as infrastructure preservation interventions.

TABLE 5: Density Improvement and Asset Preservation Example Density

Airspace Consumed

924 kg/m³

108 225 m³

1 100 kg/m³

90 909 m³

Difference

17 316 m³

Preserved Asset Value: R3.01 million Avoided Future Disposal Cost: R12.35 million.

CLOSURE SHOCK AND GRAP 19 The Growing Cost of Landfill Closure The closure of a modern landfill facility extends far beyond the placement of final cover. Closure obligations typically include: • Engineered capping systems.

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• Stormwater infrastructure. • Leachate management systems. • Landfill gas management. • Groundwater monitoring. • Environmental auditing and reporting. • Long-term maintenance and monitoring. Many of these obligations continue for decades after waste disposal operations have ceased. GRAP 19 and Municipal Financial Exposure GRAP 19 requires municipalities to recognise future rehabilitation and closure obligations as financial provisions. This means landfill liabilities begin accumulating from the day waste is deposited. Every tonne of waste received therefore contributes not only to airspace consumption but also to future financial obligations. Many municipalities continue to underestimate the scale of these liabilities, creating significant long-term financial exposure.

Poor Operations

More Airspace Consumed

Reduced Landfill Lifespan

Earlier Closure

Replacement Disposal Required

Closure Shock Premature airspace depletion creates a cascading series of financial consequences. This sequence may be described as “Closure Shock”. Closure Shock occurs when municipalities simultaneously face: Closure expenditure. Rehabilitation obligations. Development of replacement infrastructure. Increased disposal tariffs. Long-term monitoring obligations.

Closure Liability as an Operational Consideration Traditionally, closure liabilities have FIGURE 1: The Airspace been viewed as future environmental Value Chain obligations. This paper argues that they should also be viewed as operational considerations. Every operational decision that preserves landfill airspace delays the timing of closure expenditure, extends infrastructure life and reduces immediate pressure on municipal finances. Higher Municipal Cost

CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND AIRSPACE PRESERVATION Beyond Recycling Circular economy initiatives are frequently justified on environmental and social grounds. While these benefits remain important, the circular economy also provides a significant infrastructure preservation benefit. From a municipal asset management perspective, every tonne of material diverted from landfill preserves finite disposal capacity and extends the useful life of existing infrastructure. Airspace Preservation as Capacity Creation Disposal capacity can be created through operational and diversion interventions. Every cubic metre of landfill airspace preserved through: • improved compaction;

• reduced cover utilisation; • diversion of recyclable materials; • recovery of organic waste, creates additional disposal capacity within the existing facility footprint. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) Material Recovery Facilities should not be evaluated solely according to: • Commodity revenues. • Operating expenditure savings. • Tonnes diverted. Their value should also include: • Airspace preservation. • Deferred capital expenditure. • Employment creation. • Waste picker integration. • Environmental benefits. • Municipal resilience. Consequently, MRFs should be evaluated within a broader circular economy and infrastructure preservation framework.

CAPACITY CREATION HIERARCHY Rethinking Municipal Capacity Planning Municipalities facing diminishing landfill capacity have several options available to create additional disposal capacity. A hierarchy of preferred interventions is proposed (figure 2). Prioritising Existing Assets The hierarchy prioritises interventions that maximise the value of existing municipal infrastructure before pursuing capital-intensive replacement options. The cheapest cubic metre of landfill airspace is often the cubic metre that never needs to be created. Airspace does not “age” — its cost increases with time and inefficiency. Similarly, the cheapest disposal facility is frequently the facility whose lifespan has been extended through effective asset management.

Waste Avoidance Resource Recovery

Airspace Preservation

Cell Expansion

Regionalisation

Waste-to-Energy

New Greenfield Landfill

FIGURE 2: Capacity Creation Hierarchy

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FUTURE DISPOSAL COSTS AND REGIONALISATION The Cost of Exhausted Airspace The value of landfill airspace increases significantly as available disposal capacity declines. For municipalities approaching landfill capacity limits, future disposal may require transportation to regional landfill facilities. Based on current disposal tariffs at a Metropolitan-area regional landfill facility, disposal costs may exceed R750/t and at waste-to-energy facilities at R1500/t. At a representative landfill density of approximately 950 kg/m³ this equates to approximately R713/m³. Airspace Lifecycle Value versus Strategic Replacement Value The Airspace Lifecycle Value represents the cost of creating and ultimately closing landfill capacity.

TABLE 6: Airspace Value Framework Measure

Indicative Value

Airspace Lifecycle Value

R174/m³

Strategic Replacement Value

R713/m³

The Strategic Replacement Value represents the cost incurred when that capacity no longer exists and replacement disposal must be sourced elsewhere. Regionalisation and Municipal Risk Regionalisation of disposal facilities can offer operational efficiencies and economies of scale. However, municipalities that become dependent on external disposal facilities may also become exposed to: • Increasing disposal tariffs. • Transport cost escalation. • Reduced disposal flexibility. • Future capacity constraints. • External operational risks. The preservation of existing landfill airspace therefore provides not only an engineering benefit but also a strategic risk mitigation function.

CONCLUSION Municipal landfill airspace represents one of the most valuable and least recognised infrastructure assets within local government. The paper demonstrates that landfill airspace possesses measurable creation value, closure liability and strategic replacement value. Operational decisions therefore influence municipal infrastructure value, future financial obligations and long-term service sustainability. The preservation of landfill airspace delays capital expenditure, extends landfill lifespan, reduces environmental liabilities and improves municipal resilience. Municipalities often believe they are purchasing waste disposal services. In reality, they are managing one of their most valuable and irreplaceable infrastructure assets. Every operational decision either preserves or destroys landfill airspace and therefore either protects or erodes long-term municipal value. Municipalities do not inherit landfill airspace from previous generations; they borrow it from future generations. The way that airspace is managed will determine not only the cost of waste disposal, but also the long-term financial resilience of municipal infrastructure systems.

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Ultimately, the cheapest landfill contractor is not necessarily the contractor with the lowest annual operating cost. The contractor is responsible for preserving the maximum quantity of municipal landfill airspace for the longest possible period through innovative solutions.

RECOMMENDATIONS Municipalities should: • Recognise landfill airspace as a strategic infrastructure asset. • Incorporate landfill airspace into municipal asset management frameworks. • Adopt lifecycle costing methodologies when evaluating landfill performance. • Include airspace preservation metrics within landfill operating contracts. • Implement outcome-based contracting models that reward landfill lifespan extension and infrastructure preservation. • Improve technical oversight of landfill operations and compaction performance. • Monitor waste density as a key performance indicator. • Implement progressive rehabilitation programmes to reduce long-term closure risk. • Evaluate circular economy initiatives as mechanisms for preserving municipal infrastructure capacity. • Consider future replacement disposal costs when planning landfill capacity and regionalisation strategies. • Integrate landfill management, financial planning and asset management processes to improve long-term municipal resilience. REFERENCES Republic of South Africa. (2008). National Environmental Management: Waste Act (Act No. 59 of 2008). Pretoria: Government Printer. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/documents/national-environmental-managementwaste-act Republic of South Africa. (2020). National Environmental Management: Waste Act (Act No. 59 of 2008): National Waste Management Strategy 2020. Pretoria: Government Printer. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/ documents/notices/national-environmental-management-waste-actnational-waste-management-strategy-1 Republic of South Africa. (2021). National Environmental Management: Waste Act (Act No. 59 of 2008): Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations, 2020 (implemented 5 May 2021). Pretoria: Government Printer. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/documents/notices/national-environmentalmanagement-waste-act-regulations-extended-producer-2 Republic of South Africa. (2021). Generally Recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP) 17: Property, Plant and Equipment. Johannesburg: Accounting Standards Board. Retrieved from https://www.asb.co.za Republic of South Africa. (2021). Municipal Asset Management Guideline. Pretoria: National Treasury. Retrieved from https://mfma.treasury.gov.za Republic of South Africa. (2017). Standard for Infrastructure Asset Management in Local Government. Pretoria: National Treasury. Retrieved from https://mfma.treasury.gov.za Republic of South Africa. (2021). Generally Recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP) 17: Property, Plant and Equipment. Johannesburg: Accounting Standards Board. Retrieved from https://www.asb.co.za Republic of South Africa. (2021). Municipal Asset Management Guideline. Pretoria: National Treasury. Retrieved from https://mfma.treasury.gov.za Republic of South Africa. (2017). Standard for Infrastructure Asset Management in Local Government. Pretoria: National Treasury. Retrieved from https://mfma.treasury.gov.za

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Department of Environmental Affairs. (2013). National Norms and Standards for Disposal of Waste to Landfill. Government Gazette No. 36784. Pretoria: DEA. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_ document/201409/36784rg10008gon636.pdf Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF). (1998). Minimum Requirements for Waste Disposal by Landfill (2nd Edition). Pretoria: DWAF. Retrieved from https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ Minimum-requirements-for-waste-disposal-by-landfill1.pdf Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE). (2020). National Waste Management Strategy 2020. Pretoria: Government of South Africa. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/ gcis_document/202101/44116gon56.pdf City of Cape Town. (2022). Integrated Waste Management Plan (IWMP) 2022–2027. Cape Town: City of Cape Town. Retrieved from https://resource. capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/City%20strategies%2C%20 plans%20and%20frameworks/IntegratedWasteManagementPlanIWMP_ WasteSectorPlan_2022-27.pdf Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE). (2025). Circular Waste Management Strategy and Framework. Retrieved from https://www.dffe.gov.za/sites/default/files/docs/strategy.framework/ cwm/circulareconomy_wastesector.pdf Nahman, A. (2011). Pricing landfill externalities: Emissions and disamenity costs in Cape Town, South Africa. Waste Management, 31(9–10), 2046– 2056. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/ abs/pii/S0956053X11002571 Smith, F.H. (2016). Critical Analysis of Current Quantum Models to Calculate Closure Costs for Municipal Waste Sites in the Northwest Province. Master’s Dissertation, North-West University. Retrieved from https://repository. nwu.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/8a3804f1-f22a-4654-9a31866aa52bcc19/content Bolton, N. (2025). Why Calculating Your Landfill Airspace is Important. Waste Today. Retrieved from https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/article/ calculating-landfill-airspace/ Bolton, N. (2025). Landfill Insights: Managing landfill airspace. Waste Today Magazine. Available at: https://www.wastetodaymagazine.com/news/ landfill-insights-managing-landfill-airspace/

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STANDBY PAPER 1

LOW-COST UPGRADES FOR ACTIVATED SLUDGE PLANTS Jeremy Biddle1 & Murendeni Masala2 1 Technical Director, Bluewater Bio Ltd, London, UK, 2 Senior Process Controller, ERWAT

ABSTRACT For over a century, activated sludge plants have been designed and operated as suspended growth systems, but there is an inherent flaw in this approach. Bacteria regulate their metabolism according to their environment and restrict the expression of hydrolytic enzymes when COD concentrations are low; this limits the rate at which COD can be assimilated and oxidised, resulting in inefficient use of large reactor tanks. Conversely, retaining bacteria in an environment with a high COD concentration promotes enzyme production by a process called catabolite activation and leads to intensification of activated sludge processes. A novel hybrid activated sludge process was introduced to South Africa in 2010 and a further three plants have been constructed since then. The process creates an environment where biomass can attach at the start of the activated sludge stage, receiving a consistent high concentration of COD as well as oxygen, and triggering the rapid synthesis of hydrolytic enzymes. Incoming COD is quickly hydrolysed, releasing small molecules which are assimilated into the mixed liquor and carried into the main reactor. By accelerating hydrolysis in this way, the process can operate at double the loading rate of a conventional activated sludge plant as well as creating ideal conditions for biological nutrient uptake and the development of a highly settleable sludge. This paper presents data from ERWAT’s wastewater treatment plant at Tsakane, which has been using this technology since 2018. Additional data are presented from other plants operating globally at a range of scales from 3 to 230 MLD on both municipal and industrial wastewaters. We will explain the process by which an existing plant may be upgraded to use this technology whilst it remains in operation, through offline construction techniques. The presentation will also describe the typical operation and maintenance tasks associated with the technology and compare it to a conventional activated sludge plant. Finally we will illustrate the typical costs for an upgrade and funding mechanisms which may be available. INTRODUCTION The City of Ekurhuleni is Gauteng’s third largest metro and home to more than 3.5 million residents. ERWAT is vital to the city’s function, operating 19 wastewater treatment works (WWTWs) and employing some of the most experienced engineers, scientists and technicians. Tsakane WwTW is towards the southern edge of Ekurheleni, between Brakpan and Nigel. The area has seen a rapid growth in residential population leading to pressure on the existing infrastructure. The current population in the Tsakane catchment is approximately 80,000. Prior to the 2018 upgrade, the plant had a design capacity of 10.8 MLD (ADWF) and a PDWF of 21.6 MLD. This was proving to be insufficient for the growing population. The plant was given a Wastewater Risk Rating of 63.6%

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in the 2012 Green Drop report, with highlighted risks of design capacity and effluent quality. Accordingly ERWAT initiated a project in 2014 to upgrade the plant to 20 Ml/d. ERWAT considered various options including the construction of a new module before selecting a Hybrid Activated Sludge (HYBACS®) upgrade of the existing plant as the solution. The main factors influencing ERWAT’s decision were: • Reliable compliance with Water Use Licence • Low capital and operating costs • Ability to construct the upgrade quickly and without affecting operation of the existing plant • Simple to operate and maintain and a small footprint The HYBACS Process HYBACS is a variant on the activated sludge process which combines a high-rate attached growth reactor with a conventional activated sludge process. HYBACS is particularly cost-effective as an upgrade to an existing activated sludge process, where it can achieve a doubling in capacity and/ or a significant enhancement in final effluent quality without the need for substantial investment in new assets. The process we now refer to as HYBACS was developed from a forerunner technology invented in South Korea during the 1980s and known as the Rotating Activated Bacillus Contactor (RABC) process (Kim et al, 2004). In 2007 Bluewater Bio acquired the technology and commissioned researchers at Cranfield University to undertake extensive research to understand the biological mechanisms underlying its high performance (Hassard et al, 2018, Hassard et al, 2020). Bluewater Bio have since completed several HYBACS upgrades in Europe and the Middle East, serving population equivalents from a few thousand to 700,000. Tsakane WwTW is the 4th HYBACS upgrade to be completed in South Africa. Configuration of HYBACS HYBACS comprises two biological stages: a unique attached growth reactor referred to as a SMARTTM unit, and an activated sludge tank. The subsequent process is clarification (or another solids separation technique) and, crucially, the return activated sludge (RAS) is recycled to the SMART unit. A typical HYBACS configuration is illustrated in Figure 1. The configuration can be adapted to achieve nitrogen and/or phosphorus removal by incorporating anoxic and anaerobic zones. In each case, the

FIGURE 1: Typical HYBACS Configuration

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SMART units are located downstream of the point where incoming wastewater mixes with RAS, but upstream of the aeration tank or internal recycle. Maximising the COD concentration of the liquor passing through the SMART units optimises the overall performance of the process (Hassard et al, 2020). HYBACS is best applied as an upgrade to an existing activated sludge process. By adding an appropriate number of SMART units, the load to an existing aeration tank may be increased by up to 150%. This was proven at an activated sludge plant in the Middle East which was upgraded in 2013 from 40 Ml/d to 100 Ml/d using HYBACS. Generally, the existing assets can be retained in a HYBACS upgrade, helping to minimise the costs and duration of construction. SMART Units SMART units superficially resemble rotating biological contactors (RBC), having circular disks of media mounted upon a horizontal shaft. However, instead of impermeable disks which develop a biofilm with an active thickness of typically 200 microns, SMART units contain 50mm thick reticulated mesh disks which fill naturally with porous attached biomass. The repeated immersion and drainage of the mesh as the shaft rotates ensures very efficient convection of substrates and oxygen throughout the biomass within the porous plates. In addition, the convection of the liquor, which contains the RAS, renews the biomass within the plates, sustaining a high biomass activity in the long term. A SMART unit is 4.8m long and 2.2m wide, containing 30 mesh disks each 2.0m diameter, and serves a population equivalent of 5-10,000 PE depending upon the strength of the wastewater. The mesh rotates at 6 rpm driven by a 2.2kW motor. SMART units contain about 10% of the total active biomass of HYBACS plants. The SMART unit is structurally different to a rotating biological contactor (RBC). It includes structural end-plates and interlinking beams to create a rigid cylindrical cage, which is inherently much stronger than the shaft of an RBC. Function of the SMART Unit The volume and retention time of the SMART unit is very small in comparison to the associated activated sludge tank; typically only 1-2%. Clearly the SMART units are not merely serving as additional biological capacity, but are fundamentally altering the performance of the system.

FIGURE 2: SMART Unit (exploded view to show mesh disks beneath cover)

FIGURE 3: Clean mesh prior to use

FIGURE 4: Biomass within mesh

Research by Bluewater Bio and Infilco Degremont (Labban et al 2013), has identified the following key features of the biochemistry of the SMART unit, which contribute to its performance: • High biomass density • Enriched population of aerobic heterotrophs within the biomass • Adsorption of particulate material onto attached biomass in the SMART unit • Rapid enzymatic hydrolysis of particulate COD into soluble COD • Absorption and assimilation of soluble COD The mesh used within SMART units is unique and patented. It is fabricated from inert plastic fibres, formed into 50mm thick sheets with a voidage of 96% (Figure 3). In use, the mesh rapidly fills with attached biomass (Figure 4). It is not a biofilm system so the specific surface area of the media is not a relevant parameter. Hydrolysis of Particulate COD It has been established that particulate COD and dissolved macromolecules must be hydrolysed into monomers and small oligomers before they can be assimilated and subsequently oxidised by bacteria (Banerji et al 1967; Law 1980). Further, over 75% of hydrolytic enzyme activity in an activated sludge process is associated with bacterial cell walls (Confer & Logan 1998, Li & Chróst 2006). The products of hydrolysis are released into the bulk solution for assimilation or further hydrolysis. Hydrolysis is the rate-limiting step in the activated sludge process. HYBACS works by creating the conditions in the SMART unit which cause naturally-occurring bacteria to produce much higher concentrations of the enzymes responsible for hydrolysis (Hassard et al, 2018). Thus HYBACS overcomes this bottleneck and enables more flow and load to be treated within a given reactor volume. The products of hydrolysis create a high concentration of readilydegradable and soluble COD. This accelerates the rates of diffusion within the activated sludge flocs, promoting the growth of larger, denser flocs which settle more quickly than conventional activated sludge. These conditions also favour selection of floc-forming organisms over filamentous bacteria and reduce the risk of filamentous bulking (Palmer et al, 2020). Thus HYBACS can operate with higher clarifier loading rates, enabling more flow to be settled in existing clarifiers. The enhanced hydrolysis also promotes effective biological nutrient removal, due to the availability of readily-degradable carbon. There are no known direct competitors to the HYBACS process, using the same principle of accelerated hydrolysis. The closest similarities are

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with high-rate MBBR used in the first zone of an aeration tank, where the biomass attached to the MBBR media is in a region with somewhat elevated COD concentration and catabolite activation may occur to a degree. Such configurations are effective at increasing capacity of a plant by up to around 50% but are often problematic due to excessive biomass growth on the MBBR carriers leading to accumulation of inert solids, especially where media with protected surfaces are used (Dezotti, 2016, Zhang & Bishop, 1994). Implementing HYBACS at Tsakane WWTW Tsakane WWTW was originally built in 1986 as a single BNR module in the AAO configuration, with a capacity of 10.8 Ml/d. Prior to the upgrade, the treatment process comprised: • Inlet screening and grit removal (designed for ADWF of 21.6 Ml/d) • One primary settlement tank, 17m diameter • One BNR reactor comprising: o Anaerobic zone: 900 m3 with 3 submersible mixers, 1kW each o Anoxic zone: 1,200 m3 with 2 submersible mixers, 2kW each o Aerobic zone: 4,600 m3 with 8 surface aerators, 30kW each • Two final settlement tanks, 25m diameter • Final effluent disinfection (chlorine)

FIGURE 7: SMART units installed at Tsakane WwTW REVIEWING THE SUCCESS OF THE PROJECT Final Effluent Quality The HYBACS upgrade was designed to achieve the Water Use Licence criteria set out in Table 1, though the limit for ammonia has recently been tightened to 1.5 mg/l.

TABLE 1: Summary of Design Requirements & Actual Performance Parameter

Water Use Licence

Average during 2026

COD (mg/l)

28.3

NH3-N (mg/l)

5.96

Ortho-phosphate (mg/l)

0.9

0.33*

Note: * The limit of detection for the method used was 0.1 mg/l. All values less than 0.1 mg/l were recorded as 0.1 mg/l.

FIGURE 5: Aerial Photo of Tsakane WWTW (2015) The flows and loads used for design purposes are presented in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Design Flows & Loads for Tsakane WwTW Parameter

Design Value

Average flow (MLD)

COD concentration (mg/l)

500

SS concentration (mg/l)

173

NH3-N concentration (mg/l)

Ortho-phosphorus concentration (mg/l)

3.4

One of ERWAT’s objectives during the planning of the project was to minimise the disruption to the operation of the existing works caused by construction activities. The layout of the SMART units was designed in accordance with best-practice principles of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA). This approach uses factory-built components which are designed, from the beginning, to be manufactured and assembled off-site, leaving the absolute minimum of work to be done on site.

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FIGURE 8: Final Effluent COD, TSS and OP Concentrations Compliance with the design objectives and Water Use Licence for the various quality parameters has been good. Ortho-phosphate removal has generally been excellent, with <0.1 mg/l OP in the final effluent for most of the time. During the period from December 2025 until March 2026, the primary settlement tank desludge pipe was blocked, causing septic conditions in the tank and the release of high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus through anaerobic fermentation. This likely caused the somewhat elevated final effluent ammonia and OP concentrations witnessed during this period. There have also been breakdowns of certain surface aeration equipment

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resulting in occasional increases in effluent ammonia concentrations. These examples demonstrate the need for good maintenance throughout the treatment stream. Microscopy Samples of mixed liquor are regularly taken and assessed in ERWAT’s Laboratory using bright-field and phase-contrast microscopy using an Olympus BX43 microscope with x4, x10 and x40 objectives and SC30 camera. The Shannon-Wiener Diversity index was calculated (Shannon, 1948) and Jenkins’ Filamentous Index (FI) was estimated. Regular monitoring confirms that the HYBACS process produces a large, dense floc with a high proportion of ciliate species and few filaments. Typically the HYBACS plant at Tsakane gives a Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index of between 1.2 and 1.7 and a Filamentous Index of 2-3, indicating a healthy and diverse mixed liquor. Analysis of Project Capital Costs ERWAT has applied best practices of proven innovation to deliver a costeffective, robust and appropriate upgrade at Tsakane WWTW, using the HYBACS® process. The project was delivered at a cost of less than R6 million per Ml of additional capacity, representing a saving of at least 40% compared to a conventional upgrade. Whilst the Tsakane project was funded in the conventional way by ERWAT, other HYBACS upgrades have leveraged the United Kingdom’s Export Finance (UKEF). The UKEF offer typically comprises a long-term government-to-government loan on highly favourable rates and is available to projects with a minimum content sourced from UK suppliers. The UK government prioritises loans in the environmental sector facilitated through companies such as Bluewater Bio who have the appropriate experience and accreditation to ensure compliance with international banking best practices. Operation and Maintenance of the HYBACS Plant The SMART units are very simple machines with a variable speed motor and two bearings (equipped with auto-greasers) per unit. There are no routine operating tasks. The operation and maintenance of the rest of the plant is the same as for a conventional activated sludge process: surface aerators, pumps, mixers, scrapers and instruments for flow, level and DO. ERWAT’s existing operation and maintenance staff are already fully trained and experienced in equipment of this type, so the adoption of the HYBACS process has been simple for them. Whilst meter readings are not available, we have estimated the power savings compared to a conventional BNR process to be approximately 1520%. This is achieved by operating the plant at a shorter sludge age than a conventional activated sludge process, so there is a reduced demand for endogenous respiration. Other HYBACS Installations Tubli WwTW is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Two HYBACS upgrades were carried out in 2013 and 2021 with a combined capacity of 230 MLD (ADWF). The HYBACS plants operate at a typical aerobic sludge age of only 3.8 days at wastewater temperatures of 23 - 36°C. The HYBACS plant receives screened and degritted crude sewage and comprises 84 SMART units and 4 aeration lanes, each with 2,500m3 anoxic and 10,000m3 aerated volume and an internal recycle pump operating at 1.5Q.

The treatment objectives are 60 mg/l COD, 15 mg/l TSS, 3 mg/l ammonia and 10 mg/l total nitrogen assessed on a monthly average basis. The secondary effluent is consistently fully nitrified and with a low TSS and COD concentration. The total nitrogen concentration is consistently within required limits though could be reduced further by increasing the capacity of the internal recycle pumps.

FIGURE 9: HYBACS Effluent Quality, Tubli WwTW, Bahrain CONCLUSIONS ERWAT has applied best practices of proven innovation, design for manufacture and assembly and effective project management techniques to deliver a cost-effective, robust and appropriate upgrade at Tsakane WWTW, using the HYBACS process. The project was delivered at a cost of only R 6 million per Ml of additional capacity, which represents a saving of 40% on conventional upgrade methods. Much of the capital cost saving is attributed to the fact that existing reactors and settling tanks can be retained as part of the HYBACS process, though their treatment capacity has been enhanced. The upgrade at Tsakane WWTW was delivered quickly and efficiently, using DfMA to shorten the project programme, reduce costs and reduce risks. This approach also minimised the disruption to routine operation caused by construction works. DfMA also reduces health and safety risks during construction and the project was successfully delivered without injuries or accidents. Results to date indicate that the HYBACS plant is performing very well, comfortably within the limits of the Water Use Licence. We have identified that there is scope to “tune” the plant performance by adjusting operator setpoints to improve the final effluent quality even further, whilst also reducing operating costs. HYBACS is a simple process to operate and maintain. The regular operational tasks are the same as a conventional activated sludge process and so ERWAT’s skilled staff have no difficulties with operation and maintenance. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author acknowledges the support of ERWAT for providing data for this presentation. REFERENCES Banerji, S.K., Ewing, B.B. and Engelbrecht R.S. (1967) Mechanism of Starch Removal in Activated Sludge Process, in Proc. 21st Industrial Waste Conference, pp 84-102. Confer, D.R. and Logan, B.E. (1998), Location of Protein and Polysaccharide Hydrolytic Activity in Suspended and Biofilm Wastewater Cultures, Water Res., 32 (1) 31-38.

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Dezotti, M. (2016), Effect of increasing organic loading rates on the performance of moving-bed biofilm reactors filled with different support media, Process Safety and Environmental Protection, pp 131-141 Hassard, F., Biddle, J., Harnett, R. and Stephenson, T. (2018) Microbial extracellular enzyme activity affects performance in a full-scale modified activated sludge process, Science of the Total Environment, 625, pp 1527–1534 Hassard, F., Biddle, J., Cartmell, E., Coulon, F., Stephenson, T. (2020) Biosolids recycling impact on biofilm extracellular enzyme activity and performance of hybrid rotating biological reactors, Science of the Total Environment, 706, 135865 Hoyland, G., Vale, P. and Jones, M (2010), HYBACS: Nutrient Removal at Reduced Cost and Energy Consumption, Proc. 4th European Water & Wastewater Management Conference, Aqua Enviro, Leeds. Jenkins, D., Richard, M.G. and Daigger, G.T. (2003) Manual on the Causes and Control of Activated Sludge Bulking, Foaming and other Solids Separation Problems, IWA & CRC Press, Boca Raton. Kim, E.H., Cho, Y.J., Park, S.J., Shin, K.S., Yim, S.B., and Jung, J.K. (2004) Advanced Wastewater Treatment Process Using Rotating Activated Bacillus Contactor (RABC), J. Kor. Soc. Wat. Qual., 20, pp 190 – 195. Labban, R., Huo, C., Mehta, S., Kaldate, A., Holst, T., Manic, G. and Hoyland, G. (2013) A Small Footprint and Energy Efficient Attached Biomass Technology for Activated Sludge Plant Upgrading, poster presented at IWA Biofilms Conference, Paris. Law, B.A., (1980) Transport and Utilisation of Proteins by Bacteria, in Payne, J.W. (ed.) Microorganisms and Nitrogen Sources, pp 381-409, Wiley, New York. Li, Y. and Chróst, R.J. (2006) Microbial Enzymatic Activities in Aerobic Activated Sludge Model Reactors, Enzyme & Microbial Technology, 39, pp 568-572. Metcalf & Eddy Inc. revised by Tchobanoglous, G., Burton, F.L. and Stensel, H.D. (2004) Wastewater Engineering. 4th Edition, McGraw Hill, New York. Palmer, S., Noone, G & Hoyland, G. (2020) Water and Environment Journal, A review of physical relationships between form and function in wastewater biotreatment and a new theory relating activated sludge and biofilm systems behaviour, 0, pp 1-10. Shannon, C. E. (1948) A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal, 27, 379–423 and 623–656 Zhang, T.C., Bishop, P.L., (1994) Density, porosity and pore structure of biofilms. Water Research 28, pp 2267–2277

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STANDBY PAPER 2

REIMAGINING WASTEWATER FOR DIRECT POTABLE REUSE – A JUDICIOUS PPP APPROACH Jason Holder1 & Sydney Masha2 Consulting Engineers, Bosch Projects (Pty) Ltd 2 Commercial & Business, eThekwini Municipality

ABSTRACT The Government Technical Advisory Centre on behalf of the eThekwini Municipality has contracted PPP transaction advisory services for the proposed direct potable reuse (DPR) water plants at the existing Northern and KwaMashu wastewater treatment works. Each DPR plant is planned to generate 70 Ml/d of potable water and distribute to surrounding communities by tying into the existing municipal bulk water infrastructure north of the Umgeni River. The recycling of wastewater for potable use, collected from households and industrial customers located predominantly within the Phoenix, Inanda and Greater Durban North areas, has been identified in the Water Reconciliation Strategy as an important potential water resource for the eThekwini Municipality to enhance water security. The Transactional Advisory (TA) team has delivered a comprehensive feasibility study that will enable the Municipality to determine the preferred technical, legal, financial, and socio-economic options for structuring the Project. This will also include technical and legal due diligence; full project life cycle costs; affordability limits; risks and their costs; and optimal valuefor-money methods for the delivery of the Project. The current technical options analysis includes for key treatment technologies with various multi-barrier stages to ensure compliance with drinking water standards (SANS 241:2025) and address potential concerns related to Contaminants of Emerging Concerns (CECs) and Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs). Should the approval of the Feasibility Study be achieved then the procurement phase of the Project shall commence which includes stages such as bid documentation, bid assessment and a PPP agreement management plan. Following Treasury approval, then ultimately the PPP agreement contract is entered into between the public and private partners. INTRODUCTION The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (Municipality), located on the east side of the KwaZulu-Natal province, is the third-largest municipality in South Africa. It has an estimated population of approximately 4 million people (eThekwini, 2023). eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS), a unit within the Municipality, has the mandate to ensure an adequate availability of potable water supply to residents in the eThekwini region. Water services are provided to approximately 1,159,300 consumers via 448 storage facilities, greater than 14,500 km of pipelines, 34 pump stations, and 5 purification works (National Treasury, 2023-2026). EWS purchases almost 98% of its water supply from uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW), with the remainder supplied from water treatment works owned and operated by EWS. The investigation of alternate water supply sources emanating from the Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP), informed by various studies and documents such as the KZN Reconciliation Strategy, and Security of Supply Plan (EWS, 2017-2027) was identified as a key mitigant to balance the Municipality’s water supply in the short to medium term. The reuse of

treated effluent (TE) to potable standards from the KwaMashu Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) and the Northern WWTW was identified as a key project to assist the Municipality in enhancing the security of water supply to their customers. The KwaMashu WWTW is located to the east of the Phoenix Industrial area, and its geographic coordinates are 29°43’45.41”S, 31°00’29.02”E. The Northern WWTW is situated in the Sea Cow Lake area and is situated at geographic coordinates 29°47’44.64”S, 30°59’52.14”E. The Municipality intends to procure this project as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and therefore, initiated the Feasibility Study to investigate the design, construction, financing, operations, and maintenance of new water production plants (NWP) at the KwaMashu WWTW and the Northern WWTW (the Project). Accordingly, on 9 May 2012, the Municipality applied to the National Treasury for the registration of the Project in terms of the Municipal Service Delivery and PPP Guidelines and was subsequently registered as a potential PPP by the National Treasury under the project number M084. A tender for the appointment of a Transaction Advisor (TA) was advertised in the Government Gazette by the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) on 27 September 2021. The TA would be appointed to provide a Feasibility Report in respect of the Project and would ultimately assist the Municipality with the Procurement Stages of the Project subject to council approval of the Feasibility Study. GTAC and the TA entered a transaction advisor contract, who began work on 02 May 2023. The TA is made up as a collective of professionals including PPP specialists, financial, technical, legal, socio-economic, environmental and B-BBEE consultants. The status of the Feasibility Report at the time of writing this paper, is complete in all respects and pending Treasury approval. Motivation for the Project The Municipality’s water supply challenges are well documented, with the DWS, the Municipality, and UUW issuing a joint statement (DWS, 2024) on 26 January 2024 to inform the affected communities of the underlying causes and mitigation measures and interventions being put in place to address the water supply challenges. The root cause of the problem was identified as demand exceeding supply in the affected communities with deteriorating/ leaking infrastructure further aggravating the problem. Further, UUW, abstracts raw water from the uMgeni Water Supply System (uMWS), has reached its abstraction limits placed on it from DWS and therefore unable to supply any additional bulk water to the Municipality. These limits are set to ensure the continuous supply of water to all users of the system even during drought periods. EWS, together with DWS and other stakeholders, formulated the KZN Reconciliation Strategy of 2017 to ensure the security of the water supply in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The report was undertaken as a response to the current economic growth in the province, improved water supply services, urbanisation of the population (from rural KZN to metros such as eThekwini), and the expansion of residential and other developments being implemented in the province (specifically along the coastal areas).

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The report identified a medium-term water supply concerns and identified potential interventions to close the water supply gap. In response to this, the Municipality set out in its IDP a water service development plan highlighting, amongst other matters, its initiatives to address the security of water supply, and proposed infrastructure interventions to address its obligations as a water service authority (eThekwini, 2023). To complement and inform its water planning initiatives, the Municipality prepared two more detailed planning documents, namely, the Security of Supply Plan and the Water Conservation and Water Demand Strategy and Business Plan (EWS, Water Conservation & Water Demand Management Strategy & Business Plan - Final, June 2017). These documents set out the adequacy of the water resources, the proposed initiatives to address the water supply gap as well as measures to promote water conservation and demand management. The figure below illustrates the current and future water balance with key mitigation measures.

FIGURE 1: EWS water balance graph The justification for the Project is to address the medium-term water supply gap identified in the KZN Reconciliation Strategy and currently forecast in EWS water balance graph above and to ensure the security of the water supply in the eThekwini region. Further, alternate water supply sources are necessary to augment the water supply from UUW to ensure the security of the water supply. To address the issue, EWS has been proactive in investigating alternate sources of water for treatment to a potable standard. The options that have been considered and explored by EWS were as follows (eThekwini, 2023): i. The installation of a demonstration remix plant providing approximately 6.25 Ml/day with the possible ultimate scenario of 100 Ml/day where 50% seawater is mixed with 50% sewage. ii. Pumping effluent from Phoenix WWTW to Hazelmere Dam for indirect use, including releases to the environment. iii. Indirect reuse from Tongaat WWTW through pumping to a furrow, from where water is abstracted and treated at Tongaat Water Treatment Plant. iv. Indirect reuse through pumping of the Amanzimtoti and Kingsburgh WWTW effluent to blend with the incoming raw water at the Toti Water Treatment Plant. v. New water Plants (NWP) - Reuse of the treated effluent from the KwaMashu and Northern WWTWs. vi. Durban Water Recycling Plant where 47.5 Ml/day of municipal wastewater is treated to near potable standard for direct reuse in industrial processes. vii. Treating borehole water to potable standards.

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It should be noted that approximately 500 Ml/day of wastewater is disposed of daily within the Municipality, and therefore, the reuse of treated effluent is seen as a key measure to balance the water supply in the short to medium term. The commissioning of the Smithfield Dam (one of the key interventions by UUW to enhance the security of water supply in the eThekwini region) is only expected to provide the first water by 2033 (UUW, 2022). This further highlights the urgent need to reuse treated effluent in the short to medium term to balance the water supply. The Project will also assist EWS in achieving its strategic goal of obtaining at least 20% of its water supply from sources other than bulk purchases from UUW by 2030. Objective of the feasibility report The objective and main deliverable of the Feasibility Study is to obtain approval for a detailed assessment that combines key technical, institutional, environmental, legal, financial, and socio-economic factors. The study will identify key project risks and challenges, assess potential revenues, costs, and returns for a Private Party responsible for the design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance of the NRW over the project lifecycle, and determine the Project’s total lifecycle costs. It will also develop a suitable payment mechanism and financial model to test different revenue and cost scenarios, assess risks and value for money outcomes, provide a risk allocation matrix and risk-adjusted financial model, and outline a clear, fair, transparent, competitive, and cost-effective procurement process. Approach to the feasibility study The approach to the Feasibility Study followed the process prescribed by the PPP Regulations and the Municipal Service Delivery and PPP Guidelines. Accordingly, the Feasibility Study consists of two stages, namely Stage 1A and Stage 1B, which are illustrated by the following figures. The supply of potable water falls within the definition of a municipal service as defined in the Municipal Systems Act. When an existing municipal service or part of that municipal service provided by the Municipality is to be significantly upgraded, extended or improved, section 77(b)(iii) of the Municipal Systems Act obliges the Municipality to review and decide on the appropriate mechanism to deliver this municipal service. It is anticipated that the Municipality’s infrastructure for the supply of potable water will be significantly upgraded (through the supply of additional potable water). Therefore, a section 77 review of the delivery mechanisms to deliver this extended service under the Project is required. At the end of Stage 1A, the Municipality is required to decide whether to deliver the Project through an internal or external mechanism as required under the Municipal Systems Act. The Act provides a framework for the provision of Municipal Services. A municipality may provide a municipal service through (a) an internal mechanism, or (b) an external mechanism. An internal mechanism may be a department or other administrative unit within its administration, or a business unit within the Municipality operating under the control of the council, such as EWS. An external mechanism may be concluded by entering into a service agreement with (i) a municipal entity, (ii) another municipality, (iii) an organ of state, (iv) a community-based organisation or non-governmental organisation, or (v) any other entity legally competent to deliver the service. It is noted in the Needs Analysis that the provision of potable water to communities with the eThekwini Municipal area is an exclusive competence of the Municipality as the Water Services Authority. When the Municipality is deciding whether to deliver the Project through an internal or external mechanism the Municipality it must first assess: i. the direct and indirect costs and benefits associated with the Project if it is delivered by the Municipality through an internal mechanism,

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FIGURE 2: Feasibility Study – Stage 1A including the expected effect on the environment and on human health wellbeing and safety. ii. its capacity and potential future capacity to furnish the skills, expertise and resources required to deliver the Project. iii. the extent to which the reorganisation of its administration and the development of its human resource capacity within that administration as provided for in sections 51 and 68 of the Municipal Systems Act could be utilised to deliver the Project. iv. the likely impact on development, job creation and employment patterns in the Municipality. v. the views of organised labour. After making the assessment referred to above, the Municipality may, before it decides on an appropriate internal mechanism, explore the possibility of

Feasibility Study Stage 1A Report

providing the service through one of the external mechanisms listed in section 76 (b) of the Municipal Systems Act. Should the Municipality decide to explore a preferred external mechanism in greater detail, the Feasibility Study will proceed to Stage 1B, as depicted in the figure below, and must follow section 78(3) of the MSA. Section 78(3) of the MSA requires that the Municipality is required to give notice and engage with the local community and affected staff/labour of its intention to explore the delivery of the Project through an external mechanism. After the above requirements are observed, the Municipality must decide on an appropriate internal or external mechanism, considering the requirements of section 73 (2) of the Municipal Systems Act in achieving the best outcome.

3. Due Diligence

Legal

Technical

BEE

4. Value Assessment

Base PSC

Risk Adjusted PSC

PPP Reference

Risk Adjusted PPP

Sensitivity Analysis

Affordability

Value for Money

Procurement Choice

7. Feasibility Study Stage 1B Report

Council Decision

5. Economic Valuation

6. Procurement Plan

FIGURE 3: Feasibility Study – Stage 1B

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Stage 1B of the Feasibility Study will commence upon the selection of the preferred technical and service delivery option by the Municipality. A thorough Due Diligence will be carried out on the preferred technical option, followed by a Value Assessment to investigate the Project’s affordability, risk transfer, and value for money. An Economic Valuation, including a costbenefit analysis, will then be completed. Based on the recommendation of the procurement choice from the Value Assessment, the Transaction Advisor will prepare the Procurement Plan, outlining the procurement process for the Project. Stage 1B is completed after the Due Diligence, Value Assessment and then the Economic Valuation have been completed. Then, based on the outcomes of Stage 1B, the Municipality must decide whether to proceed with the procurement of the Project through an external mechanism in accordance with section 80 of the Municipal Systems Act (MSA).

NEEDS ANALYSIS The Needs Analysis is the first step and foundation of the Feasibility Study as it defines the scope of the Project and is the basis on which the remaining components of the Feasibility Study are prepared. The Needs Analysis incorporates the requirements of the Municipal PPP Guidelines and is structured to include institutional assessment, project technical definition and output specifications. Institutional assessment The alignment of the Project to the Municipality’s mandate and strategic objectives emanates from the Constitution, which enacts various components of legislation which then give effect to the Municipality’s own mandate and function. The relevant legislations and Municipal mandate are incorporated in documents such as: The Constitution, National Water Act (NWA), Water Services Act (WSA), National Water Resources Strategy (NWRS), KZN Reconciliation Strategy, Municipal Mandate and Function, Integrated Development Plan (IDP), Security of Supply Plan and the Water Conservation & Water Demand Strategy & Business Plan (WC&WDM Plan). In terms of the Municipal Public Private Partnership Regulations (MPPP Regulations), it is required that the Needs Analysis should demonstrate the Municipality’s commitment and capacity to manage, evaluate, negotiate, and implement the Project should a PPP be the preferred procurement choice. This is undertaken through setting out the resourcing and capacity of the Project team and the TA, a discussion of the project management process and governance structure and a listing of key stakeholders, highlighting their participation in the Project. There are two sets of stakeholders in the PPP process, namely: the Municipality and the TA. To facilitate and manage the interaction between the Municipality and the Transaction Advisor and ultimately to have an integrated Project, a Project Steering Committee (PSC) has been established. The PSC consists of the Project Officer, EWS representatives, GTAC, DBSA and members of the TA. Through establishment of the PSC, the Project Team and appointment of the Project Officer, the Municipality can manage, process, evaluate, negotiate and implement the Project. There is a clear line of decision-making, capacity and plans for addressing skills transfer. The available budget for the Project is required to be ascertained. In the approach to identifying the available budget for the Project, the TA first reviewed the Municipality’s overall capital and operating budget and then the capital and operating budget of the EWS unit over the 2023/2024 to 2025/2026 Medium-Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework (MTREF) financial years. It is expected that any budget allocations for the Project will come from within the budget of the EWS unit. EWS will only make budget commitments based on the outcomes of this Feasibility Study if it

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decides it is feasible to proceed with the Project. The Project will generate additional revenue through the sale of potable water to customers which will assist EWS to cover the costs of the Project. An affordability assessment was undertaken during the Value Assessment stage of the Feasibility Study. Project technical definition The ToR called for an NWP of at least 70 Ml/d per day per site (annual average dry weather flow). After analysing the current and future catchment sewage flows, including lands/houses in areas without water-borne sanitation and potential future developments, it was determined that both sites have the potential to reach inflows exceeding 70 Ml/d. The Northern WWTW catchment has the potential to reach sewerage inflows of approximately 89.73 Ml/d, while the KwaMashu WWTW could potentially reach 79.44 Ml/d. The Northern WWTW currently can treat sewage inflows of 70 Ml/d, while the KwaMashu WWTW can treat 65 Ml/d, based on their hydraulic treatment capacities. However, both sites have the potential to achieve higher sewage inflows as mentioned above. The future augmentation of both WWTWs is planned between 90 to 110 Ml/d. Currently, the sewage inflows to both sites are below the required 70 Ml/d, primarily due to damage to bulk infrastructure caused by the April 2022 KZN floods and the presence of under-developed and undeveloped areas without water-borne sanitation. It was therefore necessary to consider a phased implementation of the Project, allowing sewage inflows at each site to increase over time as municipal remedial measures are completed. The optimal phasing will be developed during the Value Assessment. The Project’s battery limits required to be defined at this stage as it would have a bearing on the scope of the Feasibility Study and transfer of risk to the private party. Therefore, the battery limits were defined as follows:

TABLE 1: Project battery limits1 Description

Entity Responsible

Bulk infrastructure upstream of WWTW

EWS

WWTW and feedstock quantum and quality

EWS

NWP-WTW and by-products

Private sector

NWP-WTW Bulk Potable Storage Reservoir

Private sector

Bulk Potable Water Infrastructure to Off takers

EWS and private sector

NWP Post-Treatment Blend with Potable Water (Bulk Water Infrastructure)1

EWS and private sector

Output specifications High-level Output Specifications are required at this stage to determine the follow determinands: Minimum flow outputs: Critical for safe yields to be confirmed for the feasibility study. Minimum standards: The minimum standards for the output water quality are currently aligned to SANS 241 drinking water standard and will therefore need to be revised to an enhanced SANS 241 specification taking into consideration the potential presence of CEC’s and industrial wastes. To transport the product water from the project sites to the existing potable water storage reservoirs within the EWS’s northern areas water distribution system, new bulk water infrastructure (BWI) needs to be installed. Currently, there is no existing infrastructure for this purpose. While the BWI falls outside the battery limits of the Project, EWS intends for a private sector company to build and hand over the BWI to EWS at the commissioning stage. EWS will thereafter be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the BWI. It is EWS’s intention to include the output specifications for the BWI in the RFP for the Project

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FIGURE 4: Modified Ozone-BAF Process The appropriate standard applicable to the final output quality needs to be developed considering the International Water Quality Standards, in addition to CECs. Identification of B-BBEE objectives and specifications: B-BBEE is a key component of South African PPP projects. In compliance with the PPPFA (The 2017 Regulation) and considering the amendments to the PPPFA in 2022, the B-BBEE component of a PPP bid will constitute 10% of the bid evaluation weighting (10 points out of 100 points). B-BBEE in the PPP bid will be evaluated against a PPP B-BBEE Balanced Scorecard designed for the project aligned to the Municipal Service Delivery and PPP Guidelines. Note that the Output Specifications will be further developed by the TA into a more comprehensive document that will be issued with the Request for Proposal (RFP) at the Procurement Stage. The detailed output specification will cover the requirements for the Service Provider to operate the new water reuse plants and to supply into the bulk water municipal infrastructure with a potable water product that is in accordance with the required standards. The Output Specifications further defines the functional/development requirements and management throughout the term of the concession, design and construction, operational requirements, maintenance, lifecycle and finally the handback of the assets necessary for the concession contract.

TECHNICAL OPTIONS ANALYSIS In its approach to identifying appropriate technical solutions for the Project, the TA considered only proven technologies, that can eliminate the harmful chemicals, provide final drinking water at the legislated standard (currently SANS 241:2025) and, where possible, solutions that can accommodate the stricter limits on the ammonia and nitrate/nitrite concentrations (in combination shall not exceed 10 mg/l) and remove total dissolved salts (TDS). Based on the above approach, the TA identified two process configurations for the Project namely the ozone-biological activated filtration (OzoneBAF) treatment process and the reverse osmosis (RO) treatment process. These two treatment processes employ well-researched, recognized, and internationally accepted unit processes that are also recommended by the WHO as guidelines for Potable Reuse (WHO, 2017). These treatment processes are combined into treatment trains that include sufficient multiple barriers to ensure that the product water produced is always safe for drinking purposes. Both processes can achieve product water of a quality that conforms to the legislated SANS 241:2025 standard for potable standard water. It should be noted that of the two treatment processes, the Ozone-BAF does not reduce TDS, while the RO treatment process does remove TDS but

produces an additional waste discharge (brine stream) that needs to be disposed of appropriately. Further, the Ozone-BAF cannot accommodate ammonia and nitrate/nitrite concentrations at the General Limit Values (GLVS) and therefore, the treated effluent (TE) from the existing WWTWs must either adhere to the stricter limits as mentioned above, or additional pre-treatment to deal with the higher concentrations of ammonia and organically bound nitrogen found within the TE be introduced at the NWP. The Modified Ozone-BAF which included pre-ozonation and a fixed denitrification bed process was selected as the preferred technical option. New bulk water distribution infrastructure is required to transport the product water from the Project Sites to the existing potable water storage reservoirs within the EWS’s northern areas water distribution system. Two options were considered, namely: Option 1: Pumping directly to reservoirs fed via the branch mains off the Northern Aqueduct pipeline system. Option 2: Pumping into branch mains which supply several reservoirs, fed via the Northern Aqueduct pipeline system. Option 2 was the preferred option for implementation taking into consideration the following factors: i. The extent of the supply area that will receive and benefit from the additional source of water supply is substantially greater by some 50%, as compared to the supply area for Option 1. ii. For Option 2, should the actual demand from the receiving reservoirs be lower than the estimated 70 Ml/d proposed to be produced by the Project at each Project Site, the increased potential water demand for the extended supply area would ensure utilisation of the available DPR water. iii. Option 2 would allow blending of the DPR water with potable water from Durban Heights waterworks. The above-mentioned benefits of the increased supply area and the flexibility to utilise all of the product water produced from the Project at each Project Site are considered to be beneficial overall, however this is subject to the Municipality’s affordability as Option 2 is more expensive than Option 1 from a capital perspective.

DUE DILIGENCE The Project Due Diligence thoroughly evaluates the legal, technical and B-BBEE aspects of the Project to identify any fatal flaws and issues that may impact the Project. Potential issues and/or risks to the Municipality are analysed with a recommendation to mitigate such risks, typically these are the type and extent of any further investigations or studies that Municipality is required to undertake prior to procurement of the Project.

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Legal due diligence Various Acts and legalisation were considered, such as The Constitution, municipal acts, procurement law, national environmental acts and labour relations act. The Project was reviewed in accordance with each act/law and the outcomes assessed with potential issues or ‘red flags’ raised. A potential public acceptance risk has been identified in relation to the introduction of potable water produced through the reuse process. This risk will need to be managed through early, transparent, and inclusive stakeholder engagement to build understanding of the treatment process, water quality safeguards, and compliance with potable water standards. A robust public participation process will be required, and such process commenced early to avoid or minimise any delays to the procurement of the Project. Technical & environmental due diligence Technical due diligence includes the assessment of key municipal support components such as the quantity and quality of treated wastewater, bulk electricity supply, telecommunications, potable water and hazardous landfill sites. Although the current safe yields from both WWTWs do not meet the mandated yields of 70Ml/d each, the future catchment developments, upgrades and the April 2022 flood-damaged remedial works are able to generate future flow quantities. This will be further enhanced through the current remedial works on the damaged bulk sewerage infrastructure upstream of the WWTWs. The Project is planned to be constructed in phases to accommodate the progressive increase in flows. With respect to treated effluent quality, current operating conditions at both WWTWs require improvement, particularly in relation to certain quality parameters that may be affected by hydraulic loading and ageing mechanical and electrical infrastructure. The Municipality is addressing these matters through planned remedial and refurbishment works at both WWTWs, which are currently underway. The bulk electricity demand for the Project is estimated to increase the overall demand at each site by approximately 5.2 to 5.5MVa. The Electricity Planning Department confirmed that the bulk power supply to the Northern NWP Site requires upgrading and that the application for the upgrade was in process for the Springfield Park substation. Confirmation from Electricity Planning for the KwaMashu NWP site application confirmed that the future required power is currently available to serve the NWP. However, it is noted that that there are existing developments in the catchment that are currently seeking an upgrade for their power supply, such as Bridge City, which may well impact on the available power for the future NWP. Bulk power supply may not be reserved for future requirements. Servitudes for the new bulk power infrastructure will be required and have historically experienced delays up to 18 months to acquire. This will be factored in the phased upgrade of the NWP. It is a key requirement that the Municipality undertake thorough geotechnical investigations at each site prior to the procurement stage to ensure that there is sufficient information for the bidders, and to obviate each bidder carrying out their own ground investigations. It is important to note that the sites for the Project were selected by the Municipality, which is located within 1:100-year flood plains. Key components (e.g., electrical substations and motor control centre buildings) of the NWP may be constructed on elevated infrastructure. Key components should be built at higher elevations to minimize the risk of damage during floods. This may ensure that the critical infrastructure remains operational even during flood events. It is recommended that the existing 1:100-year flood lines should be re-calculated for both the KwaMashu and Northern WWTW sites

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within the uMhlangane River by the Municipality and become available to the bidders at the onset of the procurement stage. The NWP facility is located within the existing WWTW footprint. Main access to both the WWTW and NWP facility shall be common, as there are no alternative entry points that are accessible due to the topography and locality of the sites. Environmental legislative review, screening and authorisations for the NWP: An application for both Environmental Authorisation (EA) and Water Use Licenses (WUL) have been made to the relevant authorities. All treatment technology options will generate a sludge by-product that will need to be further managed on site to meet legislated requirements (i.e. Waste Management Act) and then disposed of at a registered landfill site. There are currently two hazardous landfills within the eThekwini Municipality, namely Dolphin Coast (North Coast) Landfill and Shongweni Landfill. Both sites contain restrictions (pH, liquid content, etc.) that need to be evaluated prior to permitting disposal. In terms of additional treatment, Shongweni Landfill will be able to blend wherein any waste can be stabilised and treated prior to disposal.

VALUE ASSESSMENT The objective of the Value Assessment is to set out the detailed analysis used to determine which procurement option (i.e., either the internal mechanism or the external mechanism by the private sector) best demonstrates Affordability and Value for Money of the preferred technical option recommended as an outcome of the Technical Options Analysis (TOA) report. The Value Assessment also identifies an appropriate payment mechanism and financial solution considering whole lifecycle costs, which are composed of direct capital costs, major maintenance costs, direct operating costs, private party costs, direct BEE costs and indirect costs. As part of the Needs Analysis report, the Project was defined as an NWP with at least 72 Ml/d capacity (allowing for losses to reach the mandated 70Ml/d) at the Northern WWTW site and the KwaMashu WWTW site. The TOA report proposed that the Project be constructed in three equal phases, each with a capacity of 24 Ml/d, to achieve the safe yields. However, as part of the Value Assessment, the phasing of the Project was refined to include two phases: an initial phase of 48 Ml/d at each site and an expansion phase of 24 Ml/d for the Northern WWTW site to be completed during 2036 and 2042 for the KwaMashu WWTW site. Two models were assessed, namely the Base Public Sector Comparator (PSC) Model and the External Reference Model. The base PSC Model represents the cost to the Municipality of procuring the Project through the conventional public-sector procurement approach (i.e., the internal mechanism). Under this approach, it is assumed that the Municipality would appoint an experienced EPC contractor to construct the NWP and, following commissioning, undertake the operations and maintenance. The Municipality is responsible for funding the construction of the NWP. The External Reference Model is referred to as the “shadow” bid. It is a hypothetical private sector bid representing the TA’s best estimate at costing the Output Specifications as if the TA were an informed private sector bidder. The External Reference Model (herein referred to as the PPP Model), once adjusted for the cost of risk as identified from the Risk Matrix, is compared to the risk-adjusted PSC Model to provide an indication of the initial Value for Money of the Project to the Municipality. It is important to note that the Needs Analysis results indicated that there is currently no capital expenditure budget, and no operating expenditure budget allocated to the Project within the EWS budget for the next three financial years. It was established that EWS would utilise revenue from water sales (domestic and non-domestic) to pay for the Project. Accordingly, to

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assess Affordability, the project revenue is compared against the cost of the Project under the PPP Model. It is a key requirement of the Value Assessment stage that a sensitivity analysis be undertaken. The report examines the PPP Model across various scenarios. The analysis assesses the impact of changes to key input assumptions on the tariffs payable while separately evaluating Affordability (including scenarios for reducing NRW and capital contributions) and bankability (separate procurement).

ECONOMIC VALUATION The objective of the Economic Valuation is to assess the economic viability of the proposed Project. Economic viability is different from financial viability. The focus of financial viability is whether the projected revenues would support the costs to the eThekwini Municipality. The financial viability (indicative) is addressed as part of the Value Assessment. The purpose of an Economic Valuation is to determine whether the benefits to society exceed the social costs. Society, in this case, is defined as the whole of South Africa. The economic analysis showed that the Project was not only economically efficient but also very robust. There are significant economic benefits to be unlocked from the NWPs. There would also be major macroeconomic and empowerment gains. The most important and all-encompassing macroeconomic impact is the contribution to GDP. It was estimated that the Project would contribute R 1,256m to GDP in 2026, increasing to R 2,116m at the height of construction in 2027. The contribution would then increase further to R 14,102m in 2030 once operations commence and eThekwini businesses are able to leverage the water for productive purposes. One way of mitigating the impact on the Municipality is to investigate mechanisms for transferring some of the significant benefit to broader South African society to the Municipality. National Treasury could consider transferring some of its tax gains to the Municipality. It was shown that the PV of tax receipts alone were approximately four times the loss to the Municipality. The Municipality could also improve its position by reducing the amount of NRW and by quantifying the maintenance savings the Project would have on its reticulation network. PROCUREMENT PLAN The objective of the Procurement Plan is to demonstrate whether the Municipality has the necessary capacity and budget to manage and deliver the procurement of the Project. The procurement process shall be carried out via a single stage Request for Proposal (RFP) which shall be an evaluation of the pre-qualified bidders’ proposal in terms of risk transfer, Value for Money and Affordability. The RFP will incorporate a qualification step requiring bidders to meet specific technical, financial, and B-BBEE standards for their proposals to be considered. This approach will give the market a clear view of the bidders’ standard of expertise and experience, which the Municipality wants to consider for a long-term project agreement. This ensures that only qualified, experienced service providers participate in the RFP process. CONCLUSIONS The Technical Options Analysis identified various technical options and service delivery options capable of delivering the required service. Following completion of the MCDM process, the Feasibility Study recommends the Modified-Ozone BAF process as the preferred technical option and the external mechanism by the private sector as the preferred service delivery option for further consideration by National Treasury. The findings of Stage 1B of the Feasibility Study indicate that the legal requirements for developing the Project can be met, with no fatal flaws

identified in respect of the Project Sites. The assessment further indicates that the Project’s B-BBEE and local socio-economic objectives are achievable, and that the economic analysis demonstrates substantial potential economic benefits associated with the NWPs. The Feasibility Study further indicates that the Municipality has the necessary institutional arrangements to manage a PPP procurement process, should the required approvals be obtained. A Project Officer has been appointed to manage the planning, procurement and implementation processes on behalf of the Municipality, and a contract manager is expected to be made available within the Business and Commercial Branch following procurement to manage the project agreement during construction and operations. Subject to National Treasury approval, Council approval and any other applicable statutory requirements, the procurement phase is expected to take approximately two years. If pursued, the process would be undertaken in accordance with the MFMA, PPPFA and Treasury Regulations, and would be required to ensure fairness, transparency, competitiveness and costeffectiveness. The design, construction and commissioning of the first phase of the new water production plant was estimated at three years.

RECOMMENDATIONS Through the Due Diligence process, it is seen that potential issues can be addressed through undertaking certain specialist studies, following due processes and applications for approval by and engagement with the relevant authorities. Recommendations have been made for the Municipality to commence with the necessary next steps on issues identified at this stage. Whilst no fatal flaws regarding the Project Sites were identified, it must be noted that the Project Sites are located within 1:100-year flood plains. Key components of the NWP should be built at higher elevations to minimize the risk of damage during floods. This may ensure that the critical infrastructure remains operational even during flood events. Alternatively, it is proposed that the entire NWP be constructed on an elevated platform. The elevated platform shall be constructed above the 1:100 flood level with additional freeboard. There is currently no existing infrastructure to transport the product water from the Project Site to existing potable water storage areas with the Municipality’s northern areas water distribution system. Based on an assessment of the bulk water infrastructure options, Option 2 (pumping into branch mains which supply several reservoirs, fed via the Northern Aqueduct pipeline system) was recommended as the preferred bulk water distribution infrastructure option for implementation. The Value Assessment indicates that a PPP procurement approach has the potential to achieve appropriate risk transfer and Value for Money. On this basis, the Feasibility Study recommends that the PPP procurement option be considered further, subject to the required National Treasury and Council approvals and the assessment of affordability. REFERENCES DWS. (2024). Water and Sanitation on Water Supply Disruptions in eThekwini. Retrieved from https://www.gov.za/news/media-statements/water-andsanitation-water-supply-disruptions-ethekwini-26-jan-2024. eThekwini. (2023). IDP. KZN: eThekwini Municipality. EWS. (2017-2027). Security of Water Supply Plan. KZN. EWS. (June 2017). Water Conservation & Water Demand Management Strategy & Business Plan - Final. KZN. Maynard, J., & Projects, B. (2025). Feasibility Study Report. MTREF. (2023-2026). Medium Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework . UUW. (2022). Infrastructure Master Plan (2022-2053). KZN. WHO. (2017). Potable reuse: Guidance for producing safe drinking water.

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STANDBY PAPER 3

REIMAGINING URBAN BLUEPRINTS: A NEXUS-DRIVEN FRAMEWORK FOR HYBRID WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS IN WATER AND ENERGY-SENSITIVE SETTLEMENTS George. M. Ochieng’1*, Nompumelelo. D. Mkolo 1 , Olufisayo. A. Olufayo 2 1* Civil Engineering & Building Department, Vaal University of Technology 2 ASEDA Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd.

ABSTRACT As South Africa pursues the African Union’s Agenda 2063 goals of sustainable water availability, conventional centralised “blueprints” for water delivery are increasingly failing to meet the demands of rapid urbanisation and climate instability. In the Sekhukhune District and similar water-stressed regions, the reliance on single-source systems has led to systemic service failures. This paper presents a reimagined framework for “Hybrid Water Supply Systems” (HWSS) that integrates decentralised options – specifically Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) and Stormwater Harvesting (SWH) – with traditional surface and groundwater sources. The research utilises a multi-dimensional methodology: (1) A Water-Energy Nexus (WEN) analysis to quantify the energy intensity of decentralised systems; (2) A Global Warming Potential (GWP) assessment using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) protocols to evaluate carbon footprints; and (3) A numerical simulation-optimisation model developed for the Sekhukhune District to test conjunctive use efficiency. Findings indicate that by shifting the surface-to-groundwater reliance ratio and integrating RWH/SWH, municipalities can reduce water supply deficits to less than 1%. Furthermore, the framework identifies that gravityfed designs in hybrid systems can reduce operational energy intensity by up to 30%, directly addressing the energy-sensitivity of South African settlements. This research provides a “judicious blueprint” for municipal engineers to transition from reactive water management to proactive, circular, and climate-resilient utility models that harmonise water security with energy conservation. Climate-Resilient Infrastructure; Hybrid Water Supply Systems (HWSS); Water-Energy Nexus (WEN); Conjunctive Use Efficiency; Rainwater & Stormwater Harvesting; Operational Energy Intensity. INTRODUCTION Rapid urbanisation, accelerating climate variability, and systemic infrastructure degradation present severe challenges to traditional centralised urban water management models. In water- and energysensitive regions like South Africa, these pressures are amplified by deep socio-spatial inequalities and acute power grid instability. This paper evaluates the transition from centralised linear water networks to multisource, decentralised Hybrid Water Supply Systems (HWSS). By synthesising global techno-economic advancements, regional sub-Saharan African

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structural realities, and localised South African socio-technical dynamics through the lens of the Water-Energy-Infrastructure-Human Nexus (WEIHN) framework (Huang et al., 2023), we establish an urban blueprint that explicitly accommodates decentralised source realities, structural limits, and community institutional dynamics to deliver an equitable and climate-resilient framework. To enhance further understanding and applicability of the HWSS, the study presents the results of a numerical conjunctive surface and groundwater use simulation-optimisation model applied to the Sekhukhune District Municipality in South Africa to test conjunctive use efficiency.

LITERATURE REVIEW The Failure of Centralised Paradigms For over a century, municipal planning has relied on Centralised Water Systems (CWS) designed around a linear layout: large-scale freshwater extraction from distant reservoirs, intensive treatment at localised plants, and extensive, energy-heavy distribution piping over long distances. This structural configuration creates an inherent, vulnerable path dependency that is approaching its breaking point under contemporary conditions of rapid urbanisation and climate instability. To address these vulnerabilities, contemporary scholarship is turning to Hybrid Water Supply Systems (HWSS). These systems integrate existing centralised components with Modular, Adaptive, and Decentralised (MAD) infrastructures. Sapkota et al. (2014) indicate that peer-reviewed empirical modelling suggests that strategic integration of these MAD systems can successfully reduce centralised mains water demand by 20% to 80%, depending directly on their level of technological sophistication, spatial distribution, and source-separation configurations (Sapkota et al., 2014). These frameworks rely on a diverse portfolio of Decentralised Water Systems (DWS), which include: • Rainwater harvesting (RWH) and stormwater capture systems. • Greywater reclamation and localised non-potable reuse schemes. • Groundwater extraction via Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR). • Localised decentralised desalination or micro-scale purification plants. Evaluating these systems requires an expanded analytical paradigm. Recent studies have expanded the traditional Water-Energy Nexus (WEN) into the Water-Energy-Infrastructure-Human Nexus (WEIHN) (Huang et al., 2023). This expanded model acknowledges that physical hardware integration alone cannot succeed without explicitly co-optimising infrastructure conditions and community institutional acceptance. Global Trajectories: Techno-Economic Optimisation & Water Microgrids At a global scale, the core motivation for transition is the recognition of

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deep resource interdependency. Globally, approximately 7% to 8% of all generated electricity is consumed directly by drinking water production, transmission, treatment, and distribution (Sharif et al., 2019). Consequently, any disruption or inefficiency in the energy sector directly threatens water delivery, and vice versa. Drawing inspiration from decentralised electrical grids, global water research focuses on Water Microgrids (Hasnat, 2025). These localised, information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled networks coordinate multiple alternative water sources, treatment steps, and storage units close to the consumer. These systems are designed to operate in two distinct modes: • Grid-Connected Mode: Interacting dynamically with the central network, shifting demands based on tariff structures and source availability. • Islanded / Autonomous Mode: Disconnecting completely from the main utility network during system failures, contamination events, or electricity grid collapses to ensure baseline survival security. Mature manifestations of this paradigm are observable globally. Driven by the legacy of the Millennium Drought, Australia pioneered the integration of large-scale seawater desalination with localised stormwater harvesting and mandatory dual-reticulation systems in new urban developments (Sapkota et al., 2014). Singapore exemplifies global best practice through its “Four National Taps” strategy, which hybridises local catchments, imported water, high-purity reclaimed wastewater (NEWater), and seawater desalination into a single digitally managed loop (Sapkota et al., 2014). In the United States and Europe, the focus centres on decentralised wastewater reuse and MAR to buffer seasonal surface variations (Sapkota et al., 2014). To manage these multi-source networks, global research relies heavily on computational modelling and genetic algorithms (e.g., EPANET-MATLAB integrations) to minimise greenhouse gas emissions, optimise pump scheduling, and lower lifecycle costs (Sharif et al., 2019; Maxwell et al., 2023). A typical cost-minimisation multi-objective function for a hybrid network can be framed as follows: ...............................(1) Where: • represents the electrical energy cost as a function of pump power configuration at time . • represents the volumetric treatment cost for a given water flow pulled from an alternative or centralised source . • measures the reliability risk or penalty based on the available storage capacity of that source. • are weighting parameters tailored to localised economic realities. While these digital twins maximise performance, studies indicate that these advanced digital tools require high-fidelity telemetry, reliable grid power, and highly skilled institutional support—conditions that are frequently absent in developing regions. Sub-Saharan African Perspective: Institutional Silos & Circular Economies When shifting focus from global frameworks to sub-Saharan Africa, the core challenges transform from technical optimisation to overcoming institutional fragmentation, historical infrastructure deficits, and rapid, unplanned informal urban migration. Policy Fragmentation and Institutional Silos A defining characteristic of resource governance across Africa is the entrenchment of “siloed” administrative mentalities. Regional assessments

by agencies like the Southern African Development Community (SADC) show that water management, energy generation, and agricultural planning operate in isolated vertical silos (Taguta, 2026). This structural division causes major policy conflicts: • Energy ministries may implement carbon-mitigation or power-generation plans without evaluating their localised water footprint (Taguta, 2026). • Water departments frequently design regional transfer schemes that rely on massive, unavailable electrical inputs for pumping (Taguta, 2026). • Cross-sectoral co-benefits are missed, compromising regional sustainability indices (Taguta, 2026). The Continental Mandate and Informal Realities Vast peri-urban and informal settlements have developed on the peripheries of major African cities, such as Chambishi in Zambia and Diepsloot in South Africa. Comparative assessments demonstrate that centralised infrastructure extensions are often physically or financially unviable in these environments (Sikhwivhilu, 2020). Consequently, regional scholarship strongly rejects a “one-size-fits-all” model, advocating for context-specific, decentralised interventions rather than homogeneous, top-down engineering standards. This perspective has been formally elevated through the adoption of the Africa Water Vision 2063 (AMCOW & AUC, 2026). This blueprint frames water as a “super-connector” linking health, food systems, energy, industry, and continental stability. The regional perspective focuses on transforming alternative water and waste streams through a Circular Sanitation Economy (CSE) to generate green jobs and recover costs (AMCOW & AUC, 2026). By framing localised rainwater harvesting, modular decentralised purification, and solar-powered groundwater extraction as formal components of an HWSS, the African perspective moves away from viewing decentralised options as temporary “survivalist” informal fixes, instead integrating them into overarching municipal master plans to achieve continental equity and security. South African Perspective: Compounding Crises & Socio-Spatial Inequalities South Africa represents a unique and highly complex case study for hybrid water architecture. It is an extremely semi-arid nation, ranking approximately 30th globally in rainfall, with an average annual rainfall of roughly 450 mm, compared to the global average of 990 mm (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021). This natural water scarcity intersects directly with deep socio-spatial inequalities and a protracted energy crisis. The Load Shedding–”Water Shedding” Loop The most critical local vulnerability in South Africa is the direct impact of power utility instability (“load shedding”) on water service delivery. Rolling blackouts interrupt South Africa’s metropolitan water distribution networks, which rely on steady electrical power to operate massive pumping stations, booster pumps, and water treatment works. When power drops, reservoirs cannot refill, leading directly to “water shedding” (the loss of water pressure or the complete termination of supply across entire municipal pressure zones). This feedback loop illustrates the real-world vulnerability of the water-energy nexus in a sensitive settlement. Municipal Uptake of Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) WSUD serves as the overarching planning framework within which HWSS operates, integrating the urban water cycle—water supply, wastewater, stormwater, and groundwater management—into urban design (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021). In South Africa, the uptake of WSUD concepts varies significantly across municipalities, driven by localised water scarcity,

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institutional capacity, and the constitutional realisation of the Human Right to Water (Mjadu, 2025): • City of Cape Town: Following its historic “Day Zero” drought crisis, Cape Town has emerged as a national leader. The city has formalised policies for integrating Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) into new property developments and is implementing extensive Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) initiatives in the Atlantis and Cape Flats aquifers to buffer municipal supply (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021). • eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality: Globally recognised for its innovative approaches, eThekwini utilises WSUD concepts through decentralised wastewater recycling, treating industrial effluent for reuse in non-potable manufacturing processes to free up high-quality surface water for residential distribution (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021). • City of Johannesburg: Implementation remains constrained by institutional fragmentation, infrastructure backlogs, and recent systemic delivery crises. WSUD efforts remain primarily focused on localised stormwater management and flood mitigation via SUDS (e.g., attenuation ponds, permeable pavements), rather than on full integration into the bulk water supply network (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021; ISS Africa, 2026). To address these limits, the national perspective focuses on integrating alternative water sources into existing municipal reticulation networks to achieve systemic redundancy, aligning interventions with the National Water Act (Act 36 of 1998), SANS 241 water quality criteria, and municipal bylaws. Socio-Spatial Realities and Disparities Empirical field studies reveal a stark divide in the actual adoption of sourcecontrol measures across different socioeconomic demographics, as detailed in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Adoption of WSUD Source-Control Measures Across Socioeconomic Groups in South Africa Aspect

Affluent Suburban Neighbourhoods

Vulnerable / Informal Settlements

Primary Alternative Sources

Automated rainwater harvesting tanks, groundwater boreholes, and private greywater systems (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021).

Informal water channels, communal standpipes, and informal shallow wells (Msimanga, 2026).

Financial & Structural Capacity

High capital availability: robust engineered roof structures are optimal for clean RWH catchments.

Low capital availability: structurally weak or crowded make-shift structures (shacks) that limit guttering and heavy tank placement.

Grid Resilience

Private backup solar photovoltaic (PV) systems or generators to keep localised pumps active.

Total reliance on communal municipal systems; complete vulnerability to localised grid outages.

Resource Disparities

High per-capita consumption, sometimes exceeding 290 litres/ capita/day in specific zones.

Severe water insecurity; strong correlation between drought periods and rapid drops in basic health indices.

Socio-Spatial Insight: Household-level Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus indices across South Africa’s semi-arid interior confirm that housing type, gender of household heads, and localised infrastructure access are primary predictors of resource security (Msimanga, 2026). The inference thereof is that technical configurations must be highly customised to avoid exacerbating these systemic historical inequities.

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Synthesis: Towards a Nexus-Driven Strategic Framework To bridge the gap between global technical possibilities and local sociotechnical constraints, urban blueprints must be reimagined around an integrated, nexus-driven framework balancing three distinct dimensions: • Techno-Economic Decoupling: Integrating dedicated solar PV arrays directly into local water networks (“behind-the-meter solar”) to protect decentralised infrastructure (local treatment units and small-scale booster pumps) from the unstable national electricity grid (Sharif et al., 2019). • Eco-Infrastructural Diversification: Utilising localised water budgets by combining rainwater harvesting for non-potable uses, greywater treatment for irrigation, and managed aquifer recharge to provide natural, zero-evaporation storage. • Socio-Political Co-Design: Transitioning from top-down planning to a collaborative co-design model, as community acceptance of alternative water sources (particularly recycled greywater) depends directly on local cultural norms, trust in testing protocols, and civic ownership (du Toit & Chilwane, 2021). Water Crisis Metrics and Strategic Asset Management Under non-stationary climatic conditions, the severity, frequency, and duration of localised water crises serve as primary quantitative metrics for initiating the structural transition to HWSS. By tracking indicators such as the Water Stress Index (WSI), reservoir depletion velocity, and the frequency of intermittent supply cycles, water authorities can establish precise empirical triggers for localised infrastructure deployment (Sapkota et al., 2015). This perspective shifts the paradigm from project-based thinking to system-based stewardship, directly aligning with the Strategic Asset Management (SAM) framework championed in the Africa Dialogue Series (UN OSAA, 2026). SAM emphasises lifecycle planning, governance, maintenance, and optimisation of water systems over mere infrastructure expansion. HWSS implementation is triggered when the marginal cost of expanding centralised bulk infrastructure exceeds the lifecycle cost of localised, decentralised interventions (Sapkota et al., 2014). The Water-Energy Nexus & Lifecycle Assessments (LCA) From an Energy Intensity (EI) perspective, every alternative water asset within an HWSS possesses a distinct operational energy profile, quantified as the cumulative electrical energy required to treat and distribute a cubic meter of water(kWh/m3) (Behzadian & Kapelan, 2015). Conventional gravityfed surface water schemes maintain a low EI profile (0.3 to 0.5 kWh/m3). In contrast, advanced decentralised configurations exhibit exponentially higher energy demands: advanced wastewater reclamation utilising MBR systems coupled with reverse osmosis loops scales to 1.0 – 1.5 kWh/m3, while decentralised seawater desalination plants demand 3.0 – 4.5 kWh/m3 (Behzadian & Kapelan, 2015). WEN optimisation within an HWSS, therefore, requires a delicate trade-off analysis: while MAD systems minimise volumetric demand on centralised water systems, they simultaneously increase localised electricity demand. In energy-constrained systems like South Africa, this increased EI must be mitigated by decoupling hybrid facilities through co-located renewable microgrids (Sharif et al., 2019). To thoroughly validate these configurations, recent scholarship relies on comprehensive Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) isolating two core metrics (Ghimire et al., 2017): • Global Warming Potential (GWP): Quantified in • Energy Use Potential (EUP): Quantified in . LCA sensitivities show that while systems like Rainwater Harvesting

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(RWHS) drastically reduce mains water stress, their net GWP and EUP can eclipse conventional surface supply systems if poorly optimised (Ghimire et al., 2017). The embodied environmental burdens within the storage infrastructure (e.g., concrete vs high-density polyethene tanks) constitute a massive spike in upfront GWP and EUP. Furthermore, during the operational phase, frequent cycling of low-efficiency, downscaled pumps to maintain hydraulic pressure across dual-reticulation grids can increase operational EUP. To maximise the benefits of an HWSS, an immediate balance between the volumetric savings and the long-term, cradle-to-grave carbon and energy footprints, as determined by LCA metrics, is required.

METHODOLOGY (a) The Rainwater-Energy Nexus (RWEN) Framework • Conceptual Basis: The RWEN framework addresses the strong interdependence between water and energy within the urban water cycle, explicitly treating rainwater harvesting systems (RWHS) as energy consumers within the broader service delivery cycle. • Key Metric: Energy Intensity (EI), defined as the unit of energy consumed per unit of water, serves as the primary parameter to evaluate the environmental and economic feasibility of distinct RWHS configurations. • Analytical Approach: The framework integrates both top-down and bottom-up approaches to comprehensively quantify and compare the energy flows of conventional urban networks alongside alternative rainwater harvesting systems. (b) LCA and GWP Analysis Protocol for an RWHS • Emission Quantification: Global Warming Potential (GWP, measured in kgCO2/kWh) is evaluated based on the established correlation between a system’s energy intensity (EI) and its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. • Protocol & Emission Factors: In the absence of updated local data, the protocol adopts the International Financial Institutions Technical Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Accounting (IFI TWG) Default Emission Factors. • System Customisation: The default values—originally established for conventional water sourcing, conveyance, treatment, and distribution— are customised and calibrated for domestic RWHS environments to map lifecycle impacts. (c) Socio-Economic Acceptance Index () for RWHS Selection • Objective: The S-el quantification evaluates the social perception, public willingness, and institutional viability of implementing domestic RWHS at scale. • Index Development: The index is compiled via data analysis from structured surveys addressing critical socio-economic parameters, including: ○ Public perception of rainwater as a necessary or secondary resource. ○ Perceived dignity and quality trust in rainwater versus municipal piped water. ○ Individual and community willingness to adopt harvesting technologies. ○ Institutional governance, including political will, public awareness campaigns, and multi-tier government guidelines to mainstream RWHS into official water delivery portfolios. (d) Hydrological and Conjunctive Use Modelling • Model Structure: To optimise multi-source urban water use, a coupled simulation-optimisation model was developed. The architecture binds a groundwater simulation model to a multi-objective optimisation program, thereby creating a unified supply-demand conjunctive-use framework. • System Parameters:

○ Surface Water: Characterised by streamflow distribution and local reservoir storage capacities.

○ Groundwater: Accounts for subsurface geology, aquifer safe yield, transmissivity, response recovery times, and hydraulic interactions with existing wells. • Optimisation Goal: The model operates under the core objective function of minimising total water deficiency across the designated command area while fully satisfying baseline water demands. A key boundary condition assumes that the initial water supply infrastructure remains fixed over time. • Case Study Validation: The framework was operationalised using institutional and hydrological data from the Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality (EMLM) within the Sekhukhune District Municipality to establish realistic water allocation rules. The Conjunctive Use Model

FIGURE 1: Conjunctive use simulation-optimisation framework. (Source: Ochieng et al., 2023) In optimisation, a model with the objective function to minimisation of total deficiency was applied. The model assumed the initial facilities for water supply are fixed and do not change with time. The objective function minimises the total water deficiency while satisfying all water demands in the command area. Equations 2-7 provide the numerical expressions (models) used to build the final model.

……………………………………………………(2)

Where: =Total water demand of user i in the command area, m, [L3] To prevent groundwater resources from being depleted through wellsustained pumping, contamination, and well degradation, a weighting factor is included in Equation 2. Thus, the final objective function is given as: ……………………………………………………(3) Where: = weighting factor for groundwater depletion objective function for The objective function in the optimisation problem was subject to the following set of constraints linking the hydraulic heads of the unconfined and confined aquifers (Equations 4-5), the capacities of the surface reservoir

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water supplies (Equation 6), and the prevention of overdraft of groundwater resources (Equation 7). This is achieved by: …………………………………………… (4) Where: is the allowable minimum hydraulic head at [L], is the allowable maximum hydraulic head at [L], is hydraulic head at [L], is drawdown at [L]. At the pumping wells, the drawdown must not exceed the desired values for all time steps. Using the transient functions, these constraints can be expressed as: …………………………………………………………. (5) Where: is the drawdown at cell , is an objective weighting factor for groundwater yield from and is pumped groundwater from cell in command area m [L3]. ……………………………………………… (6) Where: = surface water from source r to command area m, = surface water reservoir capacity [L3]. ………………………………………. (7) groundwater pumped from aquifer for user j in command area

outcome of the Water Services Assessment Model (WSAM) for quaternary water resources indicates a total surplus of 255.9 m3/a. This demonstrates the potential of exporting and developing water resources.

TABLE 3: Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality quaternary water resources (Source: WSAM, 2019; Ochieng et al., 2023) Summary of Water Resources Water Resources

Water Requirements million M3/a

million M3/a

Surface

545

Irrigation

199.1

Groundwater

54.6

Urban

10.6

Return Flows

18.2

Rural

23.3

Transfer IN

50.9

Mining & Bulk Industrial

5.3

TOTAL

668.7

Ecological Reserve

123.6

Transfer OU

50.9 412.8

RESULTS The RWEN Framework

Where: m [L3]. Groundwater pumped from cell [L3] Overall, natural groundwater recharges in part [L3]

Elias Motsoaledi Local Municipality (EMLM) Surface Water Data Given the use, a 30-day decision interval is selected for the case study. In a year, 12 decisions are taken, with an interval of 30 days between each decision in a wet year. A wet year is considered to begin from June 1 and end May 31. The mean annual rainfall in the command area is 620 mm based on 10 years of historical records from January 2006 to December 2016. Based on the Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) in the surrounding area, assuming recharge being 2% of MAP, the rainfall recharge is approximately 702 m3/a. Table 2 presents the average inflow to the reservoir, pipeline losses, consumption, and average rainfall in the command area for each of the 12 decision intervals for the whole year. The first period, starting from June, is taken as the beginning of the wet year.

TABLE 2: Inflow from WTP, pipeline loss, and consumption statistics Decision interval

Inflow (m3)

Pipeline loss (m3)

Consumption (m3)

Rainfall Ave (mm)

283.950

15.67

268.28

5.69

233.660

15.13

218.53

5.87

221.150

12.64

208.51

7.47

263.979

24.136

239.843

10.12

296.757

24.265

272.492

49.45

266.795

27.324

239.471

83.23

258.596

24.477

234.119

105.09

315.941

31.856

284.085

124.89

267.737

10.125

257.612

101.62

310.651

0.39

310.261

69.41

192.760

6.94

185.82

53.12

288.990

38.7

250.29

18.73

Table 3 presents the outcome of the Water Services Assessment by DWS and a summary of the quaternary of Water Resources in Elias Motsoaledi. The

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FIGURE 2: The RWEN Framework. (Source: Ochieng et al., 2023) The S-eI A quantifiable Socio-Economic Acceptance Index () was developed using a multi-criterion weighted index model. The is constructed as a weighted composite index aggregated from four core sub-indices/dimensions outlined in the methodology section. Where the overall Index is defined as follows:

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……………… (8) Where: • represents the normalised score of each sub-index dimension. • represents the assigned empirical weight for each dimension, subject to the constraint: …………………………………………………… (9) The Application Protocol: Operationalising the S-eI Index

FIGURE 3: S-eI Model Application Protocol Index Interpretation Matrix At the final stage, the scores for are mapped to evaluate the feasibility of selecting the RWHS framework to form part of the HWSS. According to equations 8 and 9, the final computed value of the ranges strictly from (Absolute Rejection) to (Absolute Acceptance). Table 4 presents the index interpretation matrix.

TABLE 4: The S-eI Interpretation Matrix Acceptance Class

Strategic Implication for RWHS Selection

0.00 – 0.40

Low Acceptance

High Risk: High community resistance or poor institutional support. Implementation should be paused in favour of extensive public education and policy revision.

0.41 – 0.70

Moderate Acceptance

Conditional Feasibility: The system can be selected, provided that specific interventions target weak sub-indices (e.g., boosting water quality confidence or political awareness).

0.71 – 1.00

High Acceptance

Optimal Feasibility: Strong socioeconomic alignment. The community and governance structures are fully primed for large-scale domestic RWHS roll-out.

S-eI Range

Numerical Conjunctive Use Model Table 5 presents the results of the optimisation using the linear programming model in Equation 7, along with the corresponding optimal distribution of hydraulic heads in both confined and phreatic aquifers in the study. From the model, optimal allocations of water resources, that is, optimal conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater resources between various users in the applied study area, are presented. The minimum water supply deficiency of 6.15 m3 was achieved under optimal water supply conditions, representing about 0.18% of the total existing water use in the study area. The initial water demand ratio of surface water to groundwater in the study area, benchmarked at 2:1, shows a greater improvement at the current optimal ratio of 44:1, thereby lowering the risks associated with aquifers under abstraction. However, the results indicate that dependence on surface water supplies to meet the study communities’ water requirements will persist under the status quo scenario. This could be different, however, with the expected future scenarios of growth and development in designated special economic zones and development/growth nodes in the SDM. While optimal water supplies for users’ current water demand are mostly satisfied, they cannot be met in some instances if over-abstraction control for the groundwater system is not maintained. This can be attributed to the uneven spatial distribution of the water infrastructure in command areas.

GENERAL FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS The application of the numerical model to the EMLM in Sekhukhune District revealed that a mixed-strategy approach—using surface water primarily during wet seasons and cycling groundwater and harvested rainwater during dry periods—can satisfy 99% of daily demand. The literature analysis of GWP found that “sizing optimisation” is the most critical factor in reducing a system’s carbon footprint; oversizing tanks leads to “embodied carbon” that never recovers its value through water savings. Social indicator monitoring is important for gauging community acceptance of RWHS implementation. The risk gauge can help policymakers avoid investing in projects that fail the community’s uptake test.

TABLE 5: Optimal water allocation of water resources for consumers (Unit: m3) (Source: Ochieng et al., 2023) Command Area/ water infrastructure

Command Area Water Demand

Groundwater supply Phreatic consumers

Surface water supply

Confined Aquifer consumers

Total

GWTW

RWTW

Deficient water supply Total

331.363

1.7

3.2

4.9

258.280

11.563

269.843

56.62

279.112

4.1

0.2

4.3

233.660

13.412

247.072

27.74

245.562

2.3

1.2

3.5

198.310

18.632

216.942

25.12

319.172

3.2

0.3

3.5

241.774

12.548

254.322

61.35

356.576

6.5

0.5

7.0

270.472

19.124

289.596

59.98

271.203

6.5

3.1

9.6

238.365

16.458

254.823

06.78

326.977

2.6

0.2

2.8

223.712

15.325

239.037

85.14

345.590

3.7

4.4

8.1

284.085

12.756

296.810

40.68

216.064

4.5

0.2

4.7

187.240

17.974

205.214

06.15

328.639

5.5

0.1

5.6

241.774

19.005

260.779

62.26

344.773

1.8

1.1

2.9

256.023

16.010

272.033

69.84

279.335

2.4

0.4

2.8

243.190

11.025

254.215

22.32

324.980

4.6

1.2

5.8

271.365

13.365

284.730

34.45

Note: GWTW = Groblersdal Water Treatment Works; RWTW = Rossenekal Water Treatment Works

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CONCLUSIONS Reimagining South Africa’s urban blueprints requires shifting away from the historical path dependency of centralised, linear water systems. South African water blueprints must be reimagined as hybrid, circular systems to achieve the goals of AU Agenda 2063 and ensure municipal resilience. In water- and energy-sensitive settlements, the hybrid water supply paradigm offers a viable approach to build climate resilience and safeguard basic human rights. This paper demonstrates that a nexus-driven approach— one that treats energy and carbon as equally important as water volume— provides the only judicious path forward for sustainable sanitation and water availability. Future Research Trajectories Future academic research trajectories should focus on: 1. Developing dynamic, real-world hydraulic models that simulate how hybrid water microgrids behave under erratic, multi-stage load-shedding schedules. 2. Quantifying the exact water-saving and energy-reduction trade-offs of micro-scale water treatment technologies powered by localised renewable energy grids. 3. Designing institutional and regulatory frameworks that allow municipal utilities to legally manage, support, and maintain decentralised, community-owned infrastructure assets.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors gratefully acknowledge the Water Research Commission (WRC) of South Africa for funding this research through Project No. K5/2534. We also express our sincere appreciation to the reference group members and project managers for their valuable guidance, technical insights, and continuous support throughout this study. REFERENCES African Ministers’ Council on Water (AMCOW), & African Union Commission (AUC). (2026). Africa Water Vision 2063 and Policy: A water secure and resilient Africa with safe sanitation for all. AU Commission Publishing. Behzadian, K., & Kapelan, Z. (2015). Modelling metabolism-based performance of an urban water system using WaterMet2. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 99, 84–99. Carden, K. (2018). Challenges and opportunities for implementing Water Sensitive Design in South Africa. Gezina: Water Research Commission. Report No. 2412/1/18. du Toit, J., & Chilwane, L. (2021). Urban household uptake of water sensitive urban design source control measures: an exploratory comparative survey across Cape Town and Pretoria, South Africa. Urban Water Journal, 19(2), 141–150. Ghimire, S. R., Johnston, J. M., Ingwersen, W. W., & Sojka, S. (2017). Life cycle assessment of a commercial-scale rainwater harvesting system: Environmental impacts and trade-offs. Journal of Cleaner Production, 149, 539–551. Gupta, J. P. (2026). Challenges of Water-Energy Nexus in BRICS Nations: A Qualitative Approach. Waterlines, 44(1s), 260–278. Hasnat, A. (2025). Water Microgrids as a Hybrid Water Supply System: Review of Definitions, Research, and Challenges. Sustainability, 17(18), 8418. Huang, Y., Zhang, J., Ren, Z., Xiang, W., Sifat, I., Zhang, W., Zhu, J., & Li, B. (2023). Next generation decentralised water systems: a water-energyinfrastructure-human nexus (WEIHN) approach. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, 9(9), 2446–2471.

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Institute for Security Studies (ISS Africa). (2026). Johannesburg’s water crisis clouds Africa’s bold new water vision. ISS Today Analysis. Maxwell, C. O., Oonge, Z. I., Odira, P. M., Ouma, G. O., Lompi, M., Pacetti, T., Bacco, M. D., & Caporali, E. (2023). Water–Energy Nexus-Based Optimisation of the Water Supply Infrastructure in a Dryland Urban Setting. Water, 16(21), 3073. Mjadu, L. (2025). Agenda 2063 and the Right to Water as a Human Right: An Assessment of the Legal Perspectives and Trajectory Toward Sustainable Water Access in Africa. E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 6(12), 3052–3061. Msimanga, L. (2026). Intersecting inequalities: A household-level WEF nexus assessment in Thabo Mofutsanyane district, South Africa. Interdisciplinary Journal of Rural and Community Studies, 8(1), 112–131. Ochieng, G.M., Marrengane, Z.G., & Mkolo, N.D. (2023). Hybrid Water Supply Systems and Conjunctive Use in the Context of Water Sensitive Settlements: A Case Study of Sekhukhune District Municipality, Limpopo Province (WRC Report No. 2534/1/23). Water Research Commission (WRC), South Africa. ISBN 978-0-6392-0533-5. Web link: https://bit. ly/46xAMzc Sapkota, M., Arora, M., Malano, H., Moglia, M., Sharma, A., George, B., & Pamminger, F. (2014). An Overview of Hybrid Water Supply Systems in the Context of Urban Water Management: Challenges and Opportunities. Water, 7(1), 153–174. Sapkota, M., Arora, M., Malano, H., Moglia, M., Sharma, A., George, B., & Pamminger, F. (2015). An Integrated Framework for Assessment of Hybrid Water Supply Systems. Water, 8(1), 4. Sharif, M. N., Haider, H., Farahat, A., Hewage, K., & Sadiq, R. (2019). Water– energy nexus for water distribution systems: a literature review. Environmental Reviews, 27(4), 519–544. Sikhwivhilu, K. (2020). Understanding the water-energy-health nexus in urban contexts in Africa: towards a biogas-supported decentralised water treatment system for communities in Diepsloot (South Africa) and Chambisi (Zambia). Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Taguta, C. (2026). The state of the water-energy-food nexus at sub-national scales in southern Africa: the case of South Africa and Zimbabwe. Frontiers in Sustainability, 7, e1768279. United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UN OSAA). (2026). Africa’s Water Future Demands a New Mindset: Strategic Asset Management to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063. United Nations Africa Renewal Policy Briefs.

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