We want to improve water efficiency among residents of the Tampa Bay, Florida area and are currently in the process of selecting the behaviors that are most likely to bring about that result. We would like to know which behaviors in regard to residential water efficiency (indoor or outdoor) others have found to have the highest impact on water efficiency as well as the highest probability that people will adapt the behavior. We would appreciate any relevant data anyone has in this area.
Thank you.
Dorian Morgan
Senior Communications Coordinator
Southwest Florida Water Management District
2379 Broad Street Brooksville, FL 34604-6899
(352) 796-7211 or 1-800-423-1476, ext. 4790
fax (352) 754-6883
[email protected]
Looking for Research on the Highest Impact and Probability Behaviors for Residential Water Efficiency
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Hi Dorian and others,
In Tauranga City (in New Zealand) we have done a mix of things to change behaviour. We started a free tap washer replacement/education service that gets us in the door to talk about their water use. We do an audit with them to show where the water goes. We also do a comprehensive program in the schools that the children take home and give their parents a lot of advise. The other major thing we have done is fitted individual meters to every house and they then are charged for the water that they use. In eight years our production of water has dropped approximately 25% and our population has increased by about 15%. To see more about us visit our web site or contact me for more details. For further information visit our website on http://www.taurangawater.govt.nz
Allan Dale
Domestic Water Advisor
Water Section City Services
Tauranga City Council
Phones (07) 5777 000 or 027 284 9416
Fax (07) 571 8917
email [email protected]
I work with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) on residential water conservation. The Utilities have done a Conservation Potential Assessment (first in 1998, and updated last year), which estimates savings for a wide variety of conservation measures. Keep in mind that in many instances these are best guesses, especially for non-hardware related measures. See: http://www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/Water_System/Reports/Conservation_Potential_Report/index.asp Also see the Saving Water Partnership website for estimates of the amount of water used for different indoor activities: http://www.savingwater.org/inside.htm (I'm sure there are also good end use studies out there.)
Are you more focused on reducing outdoor use (peak summer use is the main concern here in Seattle) or indoor/baseline use? On the indoor side, SPU has focused largely on hardware upgrades (low-flow toilets, efficient washers, showerheads, and faucet aerators), but we are starting to get more into behaviors like washing full loads of clothes. In particular, we have had great success promoting efficient washers through rebates (the market share in the Seattle area is now up to 50%, and we just did rebate #55,000). We also have a strong program to help multi-family dwelling owners and low-income residents change out old toilets, and a new list of low-flow toilets that we tested and found to work well (no more clogging--the perception of which has been a barrier to adopting low-flow toilets). The assumption is, of course, that you will get a guaranteed amount of savings with such hardware/appliance upgrades (though usually less than the technical potential). Outdoors is a lot harder, because many of the behaviors are very complex, e.g., selecting the right plants for your site, checking the soil moisture before watering, applying mulch to garden beds, rescheduling irrigation systems, etc. Moreover, it takes much longer to see the results, and attributing reductions in water use to these behaviors is very difficult. We do know that automatic irrigation systems tend to be very wasteful, in part because they are poorly designed and maintained and rarely rescheduled to track changes in weather. In theory, there is a good savings potential associated with irrigation systems, and we have tried a few approaches to help people address some of the problems associated with them. For example, we are now promoting tools to help people figure out how much to water (see http://www.iwms.org/C_Water_Budget.html); the irrigation index will soon be posted with the local tv weather, too. Keep in mind that the probability of people adopting any behavior will vary among different target audiences. For example, research with our customers has revealed that there seems to be a segment of so-called "high peak users" that are avid gardeners, and who are more open to trying new behaviors and more interested in conservation, compared to people who are really into having a green lawn. They also get their information from different sources. The question is, what segments are most likely to adopt the target behavior, how big are those segments, and what would it take to get them to change? Anyway, sorry I don't have a nice, neat answer to your question, but I would be happy to discuss this with you more, and to refer you to others in the Utilities who specialize in particular conservation areas such as irrigation.
Allegra Abramo
206-615-1452