Factors Affecting Domestic Water Consumption in Rural Households upon Access to Improved Water Supply: Insights from the Wei River Basin, China

Abstract

Comprehensively understanding water consumption behavior is necessary to design efficient and effective water use strategies. Despite global efforts to identify the factors that affect domestic water consumption, those related to domestic water use in rural regions have not been sufficiently studied, particularly in villages that have gained access to improved water supply. To address this gap, we investigated 247 households in eight villages in the Wei River Basin where three types of improved water supply systems are implemented. Results show that domestic water consumption in liters per capita per day was significantly correlated with water supply pattern and vegetable garden area, and significantly negatively correlated with family size and age of household head. Traditional hygiene habits, use of water appliances, and preference for vegetable gardening remain dominant behaviors in the villages with access to improved water supply. Future studies on rural domestic water consumption should pay more attention to user lifestyles (water appliance usage habits, outdoor water use) and cultural backgrounds (age, education).

Investigating the Predictors of Domestic Water Consumption in Urban Households with Children Under-Five Years: A Panel Study in the Atwima Nwabiagya District, Ghana

“…This inverse relationship between per capita water consumption and household size is consistent with studies by Martin (1999) and Keshavarzi et al (2006) who demonstrated in their studies that percapita water consumption in large families was lower compared to smaller families because the use of water for domestic activities such as home cleaning, gardening, taking care of livestock were relatively independent of family size (Fan et al, 2013).…”

“…The low explanatory power in this study was consistent with other studies of domestic water use in Mexico which found an R 2 of 0.13 (Corral-Verdugo et al, 2002), 0.22 for a study conducted in Australia (Syme et al, 2004), and 0.37 for another conducted in rural China (Fan et al, 2013). The results from our research therefore suggests that percapita domestic water consumption in households with children less than five years may be influenced by varied factors which necessitates further exploration.…”

Willingness of Farmers to Transform Vacant Rural Residential Land into Cultivated Land in a Major Grain-Producing Area of Central China

“…The area of rural residential land increased by 100,000 ha, and the rural residential land per capita increased from 193 m 2 to 230 m 2 from 1996 to 2008 [17]. Meanwhile, a large number of the rural population is migrating to urban, with more than 120 million migrants per year in China [17,18]. These migrants possess residential and cultivated land in rural areas.…”

Estimating and Forecasting Domestic Water Demand in Mountain Province, Philippines.

“…As the household size increases, the average consumption of a member of a family decreases (Fan, et al, 2013). The decrease in per capita consumption as the number of household members increases is attributed to the sharing of water needs in cooking and washing clothes, dishes, and cars.…”