Water end use feedback produces long-term reductions in residential water demand

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of household water use, which trialled three different interventions designed to reduce consumption. Two hundred and twenty-one households in South East Queensland (SEQ) were divided into four groups - three different intervention types and one control group - and their ongoing daily water consumption was monitored before, during and after the intervention. In the information only condition, households received general advice about how they could save water. In the descriptive norm condition, households received information about water saving along with information about the numbers of other "low water use households" that used these same behaviours. In the water end-use feedback condition, households received water saving tips along with tailored specific information about where water was being used in their own household. Longitudinal analysis showed that the information only and descriptive norm conditions resulted in water savings quite rapidly, but these changes were lost over time, as households later returned to their pre-intervention water use levels. In the water end-use condition, by contrast, water use declined more slowly, but the effect of this intervention was longer-lived. Implications for future interventions in domestic water consumption are discussed.