What is site clearing in construction?
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What is site clearing?
Site clearing (site clearance) is removing everything from a building site that mustn't stay under the new work: grass, bush, trees, stumps and roots, rubble, litter and the topsoil. It's the first machine work on almost every construction job, before setting out, earthworks and foundations.
Builders and engineers split it into three parts, often written in contracts as clearing and grubbing plus topsoil stripping:
| Part | What it means | Usual machine |
|---|---|---|
| Clearing | Cutting or pushing over grass, bush and trees, and removing rubble and litter from the surface | TLB front bucket, bobcat, bulldozer |
| Grubbing | Digging out stumps, roots and buried logs | TLB backhoe, excavator |
| Topsoil stripping | Scraping off the dark, root-filled top layer and stockpiling it for later use | TLB, bulldozer, grader, with tippers |
Demolishing old buildings and slabs is a separate job, covered on demolition. How we run a clearing job, with machine days and prices, is on bush and site clearing.
What is grubbing?
Grubbing is removing what's left in the ground after the bush is cut: stumps, root balls, big roots and buried timber. It matters because wood rots. A stump left under a slab, a road or a fill slowly decays and leaves a void, and the ground above it settles, cracking slabs and paving years later.
- How it's done: the operator digs around the stump with the backhoe or excavator bucket, cuts the main roots and levers the stump out whole. A TLB's backhoe reaches about 4.45 m deep with a standard arm (JCB 3CX or similar); big trees need a 20–25 t excavator.
- Backfilling: stump holes are filled with suitable soil and compacted in layers, not just pushed full of loose soil, or they become soft spots of their own.
- Services first: grubbing is excavation. Construction Regulation 13 requires the location of electricity, water, gas and similar services to be established before excavation that could affect them, so mark pipes and cables before the machine starts.
Topsoil stripping
Topsoil is the darker top layer full of roots and organic matter. It's good for plants but bad to build on: it compresses, holds water and rots. So it's stripped from everywhere that will carry a building, road, paving or fill, and stockpiled to spread on gardens, verges and slopes at the end of the job. The depth to strip varies by site; your engineer or the soil report sets it.
How much topsoil comes off?
Topsoil bulks up a lot when it's dug: from Caterpillar's reference tables, one cube in the ground becomes about 1.43 loose cubes. Stripping 150 mm off a 1,000 m² plot is 150 cubes in the ground, about 215 loose cubes, so roughly 21 loads of a 10 cube tipper if it all goes off site. Topsoil is light, so the tipper fills by volume, not weight. Keeping it on site saves those loads and the cost of buying it back later.
Stockpiling it properly
- Keep topsoil and subsoil in separate heaps.
- Put the stockpile where it won't be driven over and away from stormwater inlets and streams, so rain doesn't wash it off site.
- Keep heaps low and use the topsoil as soon as you can; a heap left for years loses the life that makes it topsoil.
Types of land clearing
| Method | How | Used for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mechanical | TLB, bulldozer, excavator and tippers push, pull and cart the vegetation | Building sites, farm clearing, roads; the fastest method on any real area | Topsoil loss and erosion if more is cleared than needed |
| Manual | Chainsaws, brushcutters and hand tools | Steep slopes, riverbanks, gardens, selective work around trees that stay | Slow; stumps still need grubbing |
| Selective clearing (bush thinning) | Only marked plants come out; the rest stay | Encroached grazing, game farms, sites keeping their trees | Marking must be clear before the machine starts |
| Chemical | Herbicide on cut stumps or regrowth | Alien invasive trees that resprout from the stump | Only products registered for that use, applied as the label says |
| Burning | Burning cut material or veld | Some farm and firebreak work | Fire spreading; veld fire rules and your local fire protection association |
Most jobs combine methods: a dozer or TLB for the bulk, hand work around the trees that stay, and stump treatment on resprouting invasives.
Land clearing and bush clearing in agriculture
On farms, clearing is mostly about bush encroachment, where thorn trees thicken up on grazing land, and about old lands that have gone back to bush. A bulldozer pushes the bush into windrows (long heaps), an excavator pulls bigger trees with their roots, and the land is left ready for ploughing or grazing. Prices and machine days are on site clearing; dozer sizes are explained in the dozer guide.
Three agricultural rules apply on top of the environmental ones below:
- Virgin soil: under regulation 2 of the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act regulations, no land user may cultivate virgin soil (land not cultivated in the past 10 years) without written permission. Apply at your local agricultural extension office at least three months before you plan to plough.
- Slopes: land steeper than 20% may not be cultivated without written permission (regulation 3).
- Protected trees: camel thorn, shepherd's tree, marula, leadwood and baobab, all common on bushveld farms, are protected under the National Forests Act and may not be cut or damaged without a licence.
Clearing alien invasive plants
Clearing invasive plants isn't optional. The Alien and Invasive Species Regulations, 2020 (regulation 7) place a general duty on landowners and occupiers to control listed category 1a, 1b and 3 invasive species on their land and stop them spreading. A stand that is purely alien invasive plants is not indigenous vegetation, so the 1-hectare authorisation rule for indigenous bush doesn't apply to clearing it.
The practical difference from clearing indigenous bush is regrowth. Many invasive trees resprout from a cut stump or roots, so the stumps either come out whole, which an excavator or TLB does well, or are treated straight after cutting. Disturbed, bare ground is also where invasives come back first, so follow clearing with grass, planting or the building work.
How does land clearing affect the environment?
- Erosion: bare soil washes and blows away, and the first big storm after clearing can cut gullies in a slope.
- Silt in rivers: soil washed off a cleared site ends up in drains, streams and dams.
- Habitat loss: natural bush and fynbos are home to plants and animals that can't move elsewhere; that's why the law steps in at 1 hectare, and at 300 m² in sensitive areas.
- Invasive plants: they move into disturbed ground faster than indigenous plants.
- Dust: bare, dry sites raise dust over neighbours and roads.
Most of the harm is avoidable: clear only the area you need, in stages if the job is long; keep the topsoil; leave a strip of vegetation along streams; re-grass or build on bare areas quickly; and damp down dust with a water truck (see dust suppression). Runoff and silt control on site are covered in the earthworks guide.
When does site clearing need permission?
The rules depend on what grows on the land, how much of it you clear, and what you'll do with it afterwards. This table sums them up; your environmental assessment practitioner confirms what applies to your property.
| Your situation | What applies | Who to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Town plot with grass, weeds and rubble | Usually no clearing permission needed | Check your estate or municipal rules |
| 1 ha or more, but less than 20 ha, of indigenous vegetation | Environmental authorisation before clearing (activity 27 of GN R.983 of 2014, EIA Regulations Notice 1) | Provincial environmental department |
| 20 ha or more of indigenous vegetation | A separate listed activity needing a full assessment | Provincial environmental department |
| 300 m² or more of indigenous vegetation in an area each province lists as sensitive, such as a critical biodiversity area | Environmental authorisation | Provincial environmental department |
| A protected tree must be cut, damaged or moved | A licence under section 15 of the National Forests Act | Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment |
| Ploughing land not cultivated for 10 years | Written permission (CARA regulation 2), applied for at least 3 months ahead | Local agricultural extension office |
| Cultivating land steeper than 20% | Written permission (CARA regulation 3) | Department of Agriculture |
| A stand of alien invasive plants | A duty to control them (Alien and Invasive Species Regulations, 2020) | Nothing to apply for to clear them |
What counts as indigenous vegetation: under the EIA Regulations it means naturally occurring indigenous plants where the topsoil has not been lawfully disturbed in the last 10 years. A field ploughed three years ago doesn't count; bush that has stood for decades does. Clearing for a linear activity (such as a road or pipeline route) and clearing under an approved maintenance management plan are excluded from activity 27.
Why it matters: clearing without an authorisation you needed can stop the job and lead to an order to rehabilitate the land, and destroying a protected tree without a licence is a first-category offence under the National Forests Act, with up to three years' imprisonment. Mark protected trees before we start and the operator works around them.
Hiring machines for site clearing
Every machine comes with an experienced operator, and the price is confirmed in writing with transport as its own line:
- TLB: clears and grubs a house plot and loads the tippers, R3,900–R5,150 a day with operator.
- Excavator, 20–25 t: pulls big trees and stumps with their roots, R3,500–R5,600 a day with operator.
- Bulldozer, D6 class: pushes hectares of bush into windrows, R5,000–R7,750 a day with operator.
- 10 cube tipper with driver: carts the cut material and surplus topsoil, R3,700–R5,250 a day with operator.
Typical days, a worked example and local detail are on bush and site clearing.
Send us photos of the land on WhatsAppQuestions people ask
What is land clearing?
Land clearing is removing trees, bush, stumps, roots and rubble from a piece of land so it can be built on, farmed, fenced or used for a road. On a building site it's called site clearing, or clearing and grubbing; on a farm, bush clearing or land clearing.
What is bush clearing?
Bush clearing is removing shrubs and trees, usually thorn bush, from land. On farms it's done to bring back grazing where bush has thickened up (bush encroachment), to reopen old lands, and to cut firebreaks and fence lines. When some trees are left standing on purpose, it's called bush thinning.
Do I need a bush clearing certificate?
There's no single bush clearing certificate in South Africa. What you need depends on the land: an environmental authorisation to clear 1 hectare or more of indigenous vegetation, a licence to cut a protected tree, and written permission from the Department of Agriculture to plough virgin soil. Clearing grass, weeds and rubble from a town plot usually needs none of these. The table on this page shows which applies.
Why is land clearing important?
Because you can't build, farm or drive safely on uncleared land. Stumps and roots left under a slab or road rot and leave soft spots that settle; bush encroachment cuts the grazing a farm can carry; and overgrown plots hide rubble, holes and fire risk. Clearing also exposes the real ground levels, so the earthworks can be planned.
What is land clearing in agriculture?
Clearing bush and trees from land so it can be ploughed or grazed. It ranges from thinning encroaching thorn on grazing to clearing old lands that have gone back to bush. In South Africa it's controlled by two sets of rules: the environmental rules for indigenous vegetation, and the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act for ploughing virgin soil and steep slopes.
Related
Sources we checked
- EIA Regulations 2014 - Notice 1 of activities (GN R.983 of 2014 as amended) activity 27
- Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations 2014 (GN R.982) - definitions
- Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act 43 of 1983 - regulation 2 (cultivation of virgin soil)
- Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act 43 of 1983 - regulation 3 (cultivation of land with slopes)
- National Forests Act 84 of 1998 - section 15 (protected trees)
- List of protected tree species under the National Forests Act (GN 2984 of 2023)
- Alien and Invasive Species Regulations 2020 - regulation 7 (general obligations)
- Construction Regulations 2014 (GN R.84) - regulation 13 (excavation work)
- Caterpillar earthwork volumes reference tables (loose and bank material weights, load factors)
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