Ethiopia has a population size of more than 100million. The citizens of the country need access to basic water requirements for drinking, washing, cooking and bathing, as a human right as per the UN convention. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations, as well as the Social Development Goal (SDG)-6 is also designed targeting such a problem. The current water supply coverage for such a big population is only 71% and the current sanitation coverage is around 45%. The urbanization and industrialization are growing fast in the country. With this the corresponding pollution production is increasing. This entails that the problem is critical and hence, the Water Supply and Environmental Engineering is designed to address this problem.

The Water Supply and Environmental Engineering profession is more and more demanding as domestic water supply coverage is low in the country and the number of environmentally polluting human activities are growing. A lot of industrial and domestic wastes are produced daily. If these wastes are not handled properly, they are severely polluting the environment. Thus, a Water Supply and Environmental engineer is expected to handle these vast problems with engineering solutions, so that the environment will be highly conducive to human habitation.

Program Objectives

The graduates of the Water Supply and Environmental Engineering program will be able to;

• Plan, design, implement and manage water supply projects to urban and rural areas
• Plan, design, implement and manage environmental engineering projects in urban and rural areas
• Conduct research in the areas of water supply, water quality, water and wastewater treatment, water technology development and environmental engineering problems
• Perform, analyze and study the environmental impacts of small- and large-scale projects
• Independently undertake the study of the air-water-soil pollution nexus with environmental management and pollution control approaches

  Establishment of the department.

The establishment of Water supply and environmental engineering department at Werabe University was in January 2021GC. It started the teaching and learning process with 20 number of students. The program is primarily designed to fill the gap created by the shortage of professionals trained in the field of water supply and sanitary engineering. In this regard, the program is aimed at training viable, job-oriented, marketable and problem-solving professionals in the planning, design, construction and operation of water supply and sanitation facilities, as well as other related infrastructure for environmental protection of natural resources, such as air, water and soil.