Influence of COVID-19 Spread on Water Drinking Demand: The Case of Puglia Region (Southern Italy)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of millions of people, radically changing their habits in just a few days. In many countries, containment measures prescribed by national governments restricted the movements of entire communities, with the impossibility of attending schools, universities, workplaces, and no longer allowing for traveling or leading a normal social life. People were then compelled to revise their habits and lifestyles. In such a situation, the availability of drinking water plays a crucial role in ensuring adequate health conditions for people and tackling the spread of the pandemic. Lifestyle of the population, climate, water scarcity and water price are influent factors on water drinking demand and its daily pattern. To analyze the effect of restriction measures on water demand, the instantaneous flow data of five Apulian towns (Italy) during the lockdown have been analyzed highlighting the important role of users’ habits and the not negligible effect of commuters on the water demand pattern besides daily volume requested.

Influence of Service Levels and COVID-19 on Water Supply Inequalities of Community-Managed Service Providers in Nepal

“…However, these commercial activities were restricted during the pandemic lockdown, which may have reduced water consumption compared to that of previous years. Similar results were reported in two Apulian towns in Italy and in southern Brazil [18,35]. Thus, the change in water consumption in the WUSAs appears to be influenced by indoor activities such as personal hygiene and cooking, in addition to commercial activities based on the local scenario.…”

“…Furthermore, restrictive situations, e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic, might further increase water supply inequalities. Thus, it is of substantial importance to analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on water consumption in order to understand psychological, social, and financial dynamics in communities [18]. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the current service levels of community-managed water supply systems, i.e., WUSAs, in Nepal, in comparison with other water supply schemes; assess the inequality of water consumption within and between WUSAs; and identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on water consumption and inequality.…”

COVID-19 and the emerging research trends in environmental studies: a bibliometric evaluation

“…Access to clean water plays a crucial role in ensuring adequate health conditions for people and controlling the spread of this virus particularly via handwashing. Therefore, water demand has been found to increase during this pandemic (Balacco et al 2020 ). Researchers have also been investigating the impact of this pandemic on the quality of the water resources.…”

Water science under the global epidemic of COVID-19: Bibliometric tracking on COVID-19 publication and further research needs

“…For example, Lodder and de Roda Husman [22] provided perspective on “SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater: potential health risk, but also data source”, saying that the wastewater could be a sensitive surveillance system and early warning tool in pandemic. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been quickly and widely tested in many countries and regions around the world, such as Spain [11] , [23] , Italy [8] , [24] , [25] , UK [26] , Netherlands [13] , USA [27] , [28] , India [14] , [29] , Japan [15] , Germany [7] , Australia [17] , [30] , and United Arab Emirates [16] . Many countries, such as Ireland and China, were conducting such kind of research to closely monitor wastewater related SARS-CoV-2.…”