Responding to the Drought: A Spatial Statistical Approach to Investigating Residential Water Consumption in Fresno, California

Abstract

Using data from the 2015 Residential Water Consumption Survey, this study examines residential water-use behavior and attitudes after the recent drought in Fresno, California. Spatial autoregressive models of residential water consumption were estimated, accounting for the effects of social interactions in communities (i.e., neighborhood effects), while controlling for indoor and outdoor house attributes, economic conditions, and attitudes toward water uses. The findings show that the spatial autocorrelations do exist. This suggests that the neighborhood effects can be a useful lever to facilitate initiatives aiming at promoting community engagement on water-saving practices. The results also indicate that a larger house tends to incur more water use, so does the presence of pools. Using a drip irrigation system for watering the backyard can help reduce water consumption. Medium income families turn out to use the least amount of water among different income groups, suggesting that water-saving policies may yield different results among residents of various income levels. Interestingly, respondents who considered themselves heavy water users actually used less water. This implies that the awareness of water importance can significantly influence residents' water-use behavior and therefore the promotion of a water-saving culture can help reduce residential water consumption.

Spatial Patterns of Development Drive Water Use

“…To test this hypothesis, we construct and compare four model structures (referred to as the Landscape Model, the Socio‐economic Model, the Environmental Model and the Holistic Model). Development‐related water use may exhibit spatially non‐stationary trends. In order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the variation in water use and to inform how and where water conservation strategies could be implemented, spatial effects need to be incorporated in water use modeling (Franczyk & Chang, ; Guhathakurta & Gober, ; House‐Peters et al, ; Wang & Dong, ). For example, it is well understood that there is a positive association between air temperature and water use (Balling & Gober, ).…”