Prof Sylvester Mpandeli and his team have done it again: South Africa gets five international recognition awards at the 4th World Irrigation Forum in Malaysia

History repeated itself when the South African National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage (SANCID) team, chaired by Prof Sylvester Mpandeli, was again awarded with four World Heritage Irrigation Structures (WHIS) Awards at the 4th World Irriga-tion Forum. This Awards Ceremony took place on 07 September 2025 at Kuala Lum-pur, Malaysia. Prof Mpandeli is a UNIVEN alumnus and an Adjunct Professor at the University.
WHIS are historical irrigation and drainage structures recognised by the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) for their long-term contribution to agriculture and their cultural and technical significance. For a structure to be designated, that structure must be over 100 years old and represent a turning point in irrigation history, offering lessons in sustainable water man-agement and providing insights into different civilisations’ agricultural development.

The following dams were recognised by ICID at this year’s event: Darlington Dam (Eastern Cape), Koppies Dam (Free State), Hartbeespoort Dam (North-West) and Woodhead Dam (Western Cape). The Watsave Award was bestowed for a water-saving App tool developed with joint research funding from the Water Research Commission (WRC) and the Inkomati–Usuthu Catchment Management Agency. All five awards were coordinated by SANCID, and the awards were accepted on behalf of the SANCID leadership by ICID Vice-President and SANCID Chair, Prof Sylvester Mpandeli. Prof Mpandeli coordinated and made submissions for all five accolades that led the nominations.
The awards are in the form of plaques and certificates, which were handed over during ICID’s 76th International Executive Council meeting, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 7 September 2025. All four WHIS structures will be included in the ICID Register of World Heritage Structures. This is the fifth time that South Africa has received a World Irrigation Structures Award since its inception in 2012. Last year, the Award was bestowed on the Douglas Weir, in the Northern Cape.
Speaking from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Prof Mpandeli expressed that this is exciting news for South Africa and Africa. As SANCID leadership, “it has been our goal to put South Africa on the global map. Based on the Awards received so far, South Africa is now ranked number one on the African continent. South Africa has overtaken countries such as Egypt and Morocco, which had won the World Heritage Irrigation Structures twice. Even more exciting is the fact that South Africa is now ranked among the 20 top countries that have won the World Heritage Irrigation Structures Awards. This is good news for South Africa as a country and indicative of the country ‘s rich irriga-tion and drainage history. SANCID leadership will continue to profile the country’s irrigation and drainage, canals, barrages, dams and other irrigation infrastructure, which are more than 100 years old, to the global community through ICID platforms.”
The South African team performed very well at the 4th World Irrigation Forum; the South African team also received the best paper award titled Än Integrated Geospatial Approach and the factors for delineating irrigation suitability areas. The paper authored/co-authored by Luxon Nhamo, Syl-vester Mpandeli, Stanley Liphadzi and Tafadzwa Mabhaudhi.

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