Modeling the Effects of Conservation, Demographics, Price, and Climate on Urban Water Demand in Los Angeles, California

Ashoori, Negin; Dzombak, David A.; Small, Mitchell J.

doi:10.1007/s11269-016-1483-7

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Residential water demand is the result of many factors. Evolving patterns may reflect a combination of structural effects such as permanent plumbing code changes, long-term policies, and efficiency improvements, as well as social effects from changing social norms and temporary collective action such as voluntary water conservation, changing water use preferences and attitudes (Ashoori et al, 2016;Brelsford & Abbott, 2017;House-Peters & Chang, 2011;Mini et al, 2014b). We explore these trends by adopting a system dynamics water demand model and fitting it to observed water use data, with the goal of decoupling social drivers from structural water use and efficiency drivers.…”

Section: Long-term Water Use and Rebound Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the factors affecting water demand in drought‐prone regions have been extensively studied in the literature (Ashoori et al, ; Brelsford & Abbott, ; Haque et al, ; Harlan et al, ; Maggioni, ; Mini et al, ), these factors have traditionally been applied to models that assume static conditions over time. Traditional demand forecasting models such as statistical analyses are often developed by fitting parameters to historical data and generating either short‐term or long‐term water demand projections (House‐Peters & Chang, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social and Structural Patterns of Drought‐Related Water Conservation and Rebound

Gonzales

Ajami

2017

Water Resources Research

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Water use practices and conservation are the result of complex sociotechnical interactions of political, economic, hydroclimatic, and social factors. While the drivers of water demand have been extensively studied, they have traditionally been applied to models that assume stationary relationships between these various factors, and usually do not account for potential societal changes in response to increased scarcity awareness. For example, following a period of sustained low demand such as during a drought, communities often increase water use during a hydrologically wet period, a phenomenon known as “rebounding” water use. Previous experiences show the extent of this rebound is not a straightforward function of policy and efficiency improvements, but may also reflect short‐term or long‐lasting change in community behavior, which are not easily captured by models that assume stationarity. In this work, we develop a system dynamics model to represent water demand as a function of both structural and social factors. We apply this model to the analysis of three diverse water utilities in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1980 and 2017, identifying drought response trends and drivers over time. Our model is consistent with empirical patterns and historical context of water use in California, and provides important insights on the rebound phenomenon that can be extended to other locations. This comparative assessment indicates that policies, public outreach, and better data availability have played a key role in raising public awareness of water scarcity, especially with the raise of the internet era in recent years.

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Section: Long-term Water Use and Rebound Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and Structural Patterns of Drought‐Related Water Conservation and Rebound

Gonzales

Ajami

2017

Water Resources Research

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“…The impact of climate change on domestic and industrial water demand was estimated from the literature using the elasticity concept [71,72]. Equation (2) and Equation (3) represent the temperature elasticity and precipitation elasticity of water demand, respectively [68].…”

Section: Weapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unraveling the Water-Energy-Food-Environment Nexus for Climate Change Adaptation in Iran: Urmia Lake Basin Case-Study

Nasrollahi

Shirazizadeh

Shirmohammadi

et al. 2021

Water

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A holistic approach to the management of water, energy, food, and the environment is required to both meet the socioeconomic demands of the future as well as sustainable development of these limited resources. The Urmia Lake Basin has faced environmental, social, and economic challenges in recent years, and this situation is likely to worsen under the impacts of climate change. For this study, an adaptability analysis of this region is proposed for the 2040 horizon year. Two models, the water evaluation and planning (WEAP (Stockholm Environmental Institute, Stockholm, Sweden)) and the low emissions analysis platform (LEAP (Stockholm Environmental Institute, Boston, MA, USA)), are integrated to simulate changes in water, energy, food, and the environment over these 20 years. Two climate scenarios and nine policy scenarios are combined to assess sustainable development using a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach. Results show that, through pursuing challenging goals in agricultural, potable water, energy, and industrial sectors, sustainable development will be achieved. In this scenario, the Lake Urmia water level will reach its ecological water level in 2040. However, social, technical, and political challenges are considered obstacles to implementing the goals of this scenario. In addition, industry growth and industry structure adjustment have the most impact on sustainable development achievement.

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“…Recent droughts across the world have caused severe stress on water resource availability and raised political awareness for a transition towards more robust and versatile water supply system [4]. This phenomenon occurs worldwide and large urban agglomerations are forced towards a more careful handling of their water resources [5]. To improve urban water management, it is important to understand the impacts and interrelationships within the urban water cycle.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Urban Water Balance Model for Water Policy Testing: An Approach for Large Scale Investigation

et al. 2018

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Urban water management will face various challenges in the future. Growing population in cities, changing climatic conditions and uncertain availability of water resources necessitate forward-looking water policy strategies. In this paper, we introduce a new water balance model to evaluate urban water strategies at a city scale. The aim is to evaluate decentralised water management measures within a large-scale investigation and to reduce external potable water demand. The upscaling process of local information (water demand, areal data) to a conceptual model approach is described. The modelling approach requires simplification of detailed processes to enable the execution with limited computing capacity. The model was applied to Greater Metropolitan Melbourne, Australia, a highly sprawled city with nearly four million inhabitants. Scenario analysis demonstrated the impact of using different water resources of different quality classes, the extensive implementation of water saving appliances and decentralised water storage strategies on the city's water balance. Results indicate a potential reduction of potable water demand of up to 25% with a conservative rainwater reuse and, even 60% with widespread implementation of rain-and greywater recycling. Furthermore, we demonstrate that even small systems implemented at a local level can have noticeable effects when operated as clustered schemes.

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Modeling the Effects of Conservation, Demographics, Price, and Climate on Urban Water Demand in Los Angeles, California

Cited by 31 publications

References 23 publications

Social and Structural Patterns of Drought‐Related Water Conservation and Rebound

Social and Structural Patterns of Drought‐Related Water Conservation and Rebound

Unraveling the Water-Energy-Food-Environment Nexus for Climate Change Adaptation in Iran: Urmia Lake Basin Case-Study

Conceptual Urban Water Balance Model for Water Policy Testing: An Approach for Large Scale Investigation

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