Study of domestic water consumption in intermittent supply of the Riberas de Sacramento sector in Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

User water demand can be met in intermittent water supply systems, and normally it is met if they have sufficient capacity to store water in their homes to be used in the hours when it is not supplied from the public pipe network. The situation in many intermittent water supply systems is that they have enough water to cover the demand of the users but are supplying it intermittently, and the challenge is to achieve a transfer from intermittent to continuous supply. If the delivery of water is continuous, which supplies drinking water 24/7, it covers not only the basic needs of the user, it covers all the needs of water they may have. The present study was carried out using smart domestic water meters to obtain consumption information in an intermittently supplied pilot sector. The electromagnetic meters record the water flow through pulses and generate consumption information, which gives us the consumption pattern in volume of water and in the time it is used. During the study, multivariate statistical methods were applied to obtain information from the domestic meters and to identify, as realistically as possible, the consumption of drinking water and the relationship between consumption and specific characteristics of the users and thus anticipate future demand. The results showed a close relationship between consumption and the size of the residence. The most influential factors were the number of bathrooms and the number of occupants. A direct relationship between the pressure and the volume supplied was presumed at the beginning of the study but the opposite was found. Equipment was installed to measure the pressure in the network at the time of establishing the continuous supply of drinking water. The multivariate analysis provides a selection of the most important variables that influence and explain the behavior of the water use and consumption pattern, with the operation determined by the operating agency.