COVID‐19 and water demand: A review of literature and research evidence

Abstract

COVID‐19 has had unprecedented impacts across the international community, with complex and far‐reaching consequences. Measures to prevent transmission have led to substantial changes to everyday life, with lockdowns, stay‐at‐home orders and guidance leading to an increase in people staying indoors. This movement of activity had profound impacts on daily practices, affecting the consumption of resources including water. Likewise, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices and infrastructure are crucial tools for the management of disease. Therefore, this review seeks to assess the current literature on the impact of COVID‐19 on domestic water use. A web‐based rapid evidence review was undertaken to assess and synthesize the theories, methods and empirical evidence emerging across a multidisciplinary body of research to understand how COVID‐19 effects everyday water use. Key themes around increased water consumption and changing daily consumption patterns emerged. There was a distinct lack of social science concepts and methodologies in use to understand changing water demand, and the methodological focus was largely quantitative. Key insights and reflections were lacking as a result, for example, there was little research on how the water‐related practices, consumption, and demand patterns differed among households. This article makes the case for further qualitative and mixed‐method research using social theories, illustrating how social practice theories, as one example, contribute to understanding the dynamics of everyday life during the pandemic. This research would generate deeper understandings of the impacts of COVID‐19 on domestic water use as well as an evaluation of the implications these findings could have post‐pandemic. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Methods Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation Engineering Water > Planning Water

Variability in Consumption and End Uses of Water for Residential Users in Logan and Providence, Utah, US

“…We were limited in our ability to modify the institutional review board (IRB) protocol governing this study and were also constrained by a complete pause of all human subject research implemented by our institution early in the pandemic. While we did not assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participants of this study, recent studies evaluating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on water demand suggested that residential water use increased, and some nonresidential use (e.g., bars, restaurants, hotels, schools) decreased when stay-at-home orders were issued (Cooley et al 2020;Menneer et al 2021;Cahill et al 2021;Lüdtke et al 2021). Other studies found changes in residential diurnal water use patterns resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns (Alvisi et al 2021;Balacco et al 2020).…”

Changes in water demand resulting from pandemic mitigations in Southeast Michigan

“…Water use data for 2016 through 2019 were indicated as “pre‐pandemic” and 2020 was indicated as “during pandemic.” The metric used throughout the analysis is the percent change in pandemic use compared to average use pre‐pandemic to provide a relative perspective on changes in water use. The percent change metric is the dominant approach used to assess pandemic impacts in the emerging literature (Cahill et al, 2021).…”

“…On the macro scale, authors reported overall shifts in the morning workday peak to later in the day where water use started later but remained more consistent throughout the day. Weather and other factors such as cultural events further impacted demand in 2020, adding to the complexity of shifting patterns (Cahill et al, 2021). However, as the authors noted, the literature lacks an exploration of regional context.…”

“…Several studies have characterized the impact of COVID‐19 on water demand across the United States and the world (Balacco et al, 2020; Dziminska et al, 2021; Irwin et al, 2021; Lüdtke et al, 2021; Poch et al, 2020). Cahill et al (2021) conducted a literature review and documented the spectrum of reported changes in water demand as a result of COVID‐19 shutdowns. Authors reported a myriad of changes including increased household water demand but decreased overall demand in places with economic sectors due to the relocation of workers from typical work environments into homes.…”

Uncovering the Dynamics of Consumption‐Based Household Water Footprint in Response to Pandemic: The Hysteresis Effect of Disruption

“…Studies have shown that COVID‐19 disrupted established connections between consumers and upstream suppliers, and that the complexity of supply chains might have amplified the impact beyond the direct strike (Daniell, 2020; Guan et al., 2020; Sarkis, 2021). Pandemic could increase direct water demand (e.g., handwashing, showering, laundry and cleaning) in households while decrease that in commercial and industrial sectors (Abu‐Bakar et al., 2021; Cahill et al., 2021; Kalbusch et al., 2020). The direct and indirect impacts on supply chains and modes of consumption might would cause a chain effect on resource use and the environment.…”