The Use of Non-pricing Instruments to Manage Residential Water Demand: What Have We Learned?

García-Valiñas, María Á.; Martı́nez-Espiñeira, Roberto; To, Hang

doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9801-3_12

Cited by 10 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(65 reference statements)

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“…Dynamic pricing could therefore support comprehensive strategies that manage demand through a combination of customer engagement, awareness campaigns, detailed personalized feedback on consumptive behavior, and gamification, for example (Harou et al 2014). Beyond, the complementarity and respective roles of price and nonprice instruments are topics of active research and debate (Michelsen et al 1999;Inman and Jeffrey 2006;Olmstead and Stavins 2009;Garcia-Valiñas et al 2015). However, although research on urban water pricing has made significant advances in recent years, greater efforts to collect data and to evaluate alternative regulatory approaches such as use regulations and other nonprice instruments remain necessary (Worthington and Hoffman 2008;Katz et al 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Smart-Meter-Enabled Dynamic Pricing at Utility and River Basin Scale

Rougé

Harou

Pulido-Velázquez

et al. 2018

J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.

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The advent of smart metering is set to revolutionize many aspects of the relationship between water utilities and their customers, and this includes the possibility of using time-varying water prices as a demand management strategy. These dynamic tariffs could promote water use efficiency by reflecting the variations of water demand, availability, and delivery costs over time. This paper relates the potential benefits of dynamic water tariffs, at the utility and basin scale, to their design across a range of timescales. On one end of the spectrum, subdaily peak pricing shifts use away from peak hours to lower a utility's operational and capital expenses. On the other end, scarcity pricing factors in the variations of the marginal opportunity cost of water at weekly or longer timescales in the river basin from which water is withdrawn. Dynamic pricing schemes that act across timescales can be devised to yield both types of benefits. The analysis estimates these benefits separately for Greater London (United Kingdom) and its 15 million inhabitants. Scarcity pricing implemented on a weekly timescale equates the marginal cost of residential water with estimates of the marginal economic values of environmental-recreational flows derived from tourism, property values, etc. Scarcity pricing during droughts could result in a 22-63% average reduction in environmental flow shortage while residential price increases would be capped at 150% of base levels. Yet, its ability to protect environmental flows could decrease in extreme shortage situations. The net present value of savings from peak pricing is conservatively evaluated at approximately £10 million for each initial percentage point in daily peak-hour price increase.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Smart-Meter-Enabled Dynamic Pricing at Utility and River Basin Scale

Rougé

Harou

Pulido-Velázquez

et al. 2018

J. Water Resour. Plann. Manage.

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“…Population growth and climate change are among the principal challenges faced by urban water suppliers in the 21st century (Garcia‐Valiñas et al, ). Urbanization is projected to add 3 billion people to the world's cities by 2050, putting more pressure on already water‐scarce regions (Cooley et al, ), while rising surface temperatures are expected to increase the frequency and severity of droughts, floods, and other disruptions (McDonald et al, ; Pachauri & Meyer, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumption Change Detection for Urban Planning: Monitoring and Segmenting Water Customers During Drought

Bolorinos

Ajami

Rajagopal

2020

Water Resources Research

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Demand management is a powerful way for water utilities to address the challenges of population growth and climate change. Although active conservation efforts have been studied extensively, recent evidence suggests households respond to many external events beyond a utility's control, including political responses to extreme climatic episodes and corresponding mass media coverage. Despite their importance, these external factors are difficult to analyze in a controlled setting, and few tools exist to evaluate their influence on customers. Here, we present a consumption change detection (CCD) method that offers new insights into how climate‐related mass media and policy events affect conservation by pinpointing the timing and magnitude of customer‐level water use shifts. We use CCD to monitor and segment the responses of residential water customers to policy and media events in Costa Mesa, California, during the severe 2012–2016 drought. Our results show consumption reductions among 75% of customers. Of these, 80% reduced water use before mandatory restrictions were imposed, coincident with intensifying state policy responses and spikes in media coverage that affected all customer types during 2014. Analysis of standardized drought consumption trajectories indicates that 16% of conserving customers increased consumption in 2015–2016. Conservation and rebound were both more likely among affluent and educated customers, suggesting that CCD can identify engaged and informed water savers who make suitable targets for water‐efficient retrofit incentive schemes. This study demonstrates CCD's potential as a novel demand analysis tool in an interconnected world where external social, political, and climatic stressors can exert an important influence on customer behavior.

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“…Moreover, it should also be possible to design specific incentives for those consumers who make significant efforts to save water (García-Valiñas et al, 2010). Subsidy programmes oriented towards encouraging households to make water-saving choices are also classified in this category (García-Valiñas et al, 2015).…”

Section: Rationing Educationalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Authors' elaboration from García-Valiñas et al (2015) On the other hand, other policies, mainly regulatory, may be aimed at reducing water consumption. Alternative rationing policies could be implemented, setting quotas, banning the use of water to cover certain needs (watering gardens, washing cars, etc.)…”

Section: Rationing Educationalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Tariffs in Spain

Arbués¹,

García-Valiñas²

2020

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health

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In the current context of climate change, water scarcity has become the center of an intense debate in recent years. Spain is a country affected by strong regional differences in terms of weather; thus, the quality and availability of water resources vary widely depending on the area, and the country is plagued by droughts and problems with water quality. Nevertheless, urban water prices in Spain are among the lowest in the European Union. Moreover, it is a federal country where subcentral governments (regional and local) are autonomous entities with different responsibilities in the design of water policies. The extremely atomized local panorama and the strong power of the regional governments have led to a highly complex system with a wide range of water price levels and structures. Since the heterogeneity is so great, this article focuses on the tariffs related to the water supply service in the 15 largest Spanish cities. In general, urban water tariffs commonly distinguish between residential and non-residential users. Additionally, there are usually specific tariffs for different customer categories within both residential and non-residential users, which are not always justified in terms of the equity principle. It is important to note that in most cities the eligibility criteria for these special tariffs usually add more complexity to the tariff system and adversely affect horizontal equity. All these factors contribute to the great complexity of Spain’s water-pricing map. The heterogeneous tariff system found in most Spanish cities runs counter to equity principles and can send the wrong signal to users about water scarcity, thereby hindering compliance with the resource sustainability objective. Thus, most Spanish cities require a simplification of the tariff system.

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The Use of Non-pricing Instruments to Manage Residential Water Demand: What Have We Learned?

Cited by 10 publications

References 43 publications

Assessment of Smart-Meter-Enabled Dynamic Pricing at Utility and River Basin Scale

Assessment of Smart-Meter-Enabled Dynamic Pricing at Utility and River Basin Scale

Consumption Change Detection for Urban Planning: Monitoring and Segmenting Water Customers During Drought

Water Tariffs in Spain

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