Identification of variables influencing water footprint of domestic water consumption

Abstract

As the world advances towards urbanisation, the water resources to cater to the growing population and their sprawling needs are falling short. The shortage is certainly not due to the natural availability, but due to the reckless use and misuse of this limited resource and the human intervention which are causing disturbance in the natural hydrological cycles leading to the depletion of water resources. With more than half of the world’s ever-growing population and 36% of total freshwater water resources, Asia is expected to face severe water scarcity by 2025 (UN News Centre, 2009). India, among this trend with 18% of the world’s population and just 4% of total freshwater resources is struggling severely to cater to the water-related needs of its people, and it is even estimated that by 2030 around 40% of the Indian population will have no access to potable water. Moreover, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply by 2030 which will eventually cause India to become one of the most water-stressed countries in the world (NITI Aayog). Such alarming trends and the related concerns hold planners, environmentalists, policymakers, and the users responsible for effectively managing the water resources and its growing demand. There are certain indicators for calculating water consumption. One such indicator is the water footprint, a multi-dimensional indicator, that measures the volume of freshwater consumed within a region which can be as large as a nation or as small as even a household or it can be calculated for an individual as well. Previous studies show that India along with China and US are among the largest contributors to the total water footprint (38%) generated globally, and the three major sectors that constitute the total freshwater withdrawal and consumption are the agricultural (70%), industrial (19%), and the domestic (11%) sector. Since, the domestic sector uses a significant proportion of available freshwater resources but the past studies have focussed less on exploring the factors behind the increasing water footprint at the household level, therefore there arises a need to identify the variables that influence the domestic water consumption and the resulting water footprint of the households to serve the aim of this study. v Noida lying in the state of Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi is selected as the study area which is growing at a rapid pace to provide world-class amenities and infrastructure to its people, and to accommodate the growing population in the city for which the plotted or detached housing layouts are gradually replaced by high-rise and high-density developments. This adds a new perspective to the study by understanding the water consumption patterns in the selected sites with different housing typologies within the study area. The selection of suitable sites for this study is based on criteria that define the scale of this study, have diversity in collected data samples, accessibility to the survey locations, and the ease of conducting primary surveys. Data collection and analysis are the two critical stages in achieving the objectives of this study. For data collection, primary surveys including household surveys and personal interviews were conducted in the selected localities to gather data for the calculation of the water footprint of households. Thereafter, the data analysis was carried for identifying the influencing variables and analysing their impact on the water footprint of households using statistical analysis tests like two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (K-S Test), one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and regression test on the collected samples. Further, the results of this study were utilized to suggest policy recommendations and conceptual proposals at the household level to mitigate high water consumption due to wastage and overexploitation of freshwater resources, and certain planning measures that can be implemented within the localities to conserve water at the cluster or neighbourhood level.