Trust in Drinking Water Quality: Understanding the Role of Risk Perception and Transparency

Abstract

In the context of an increasing societal demand for transparency in parallel with rapidly increasing numbers and concentrations of substances found in drinking water, this paper investigates how different drinking water customers perceive their tap water quality, and possible risks involved. Empirically, the paper draws on results from a representative survey, a series of interviews and focus groups conducted in the Netherlands, applying both a traditional and modern segmentation approach based on four types of perspectives (“aware and committed”, “down to earth and confident”, “egalitarian and solidary”, and “quality and health concerned”). Although in general it was found that people’s trust in tap water is high, certain groups are more concerned about water quality and health effects than others. It was shown that transparency and the availability of more information about water treatment and quality would contribute to increasing customer trust. It was also observed that, at least in the Netherlands, people have a larger trust in drinking water companies than in other institutions. Therefore, instead of referring to standards made by other institutions, it is recommended that water companies themselves provide information on water quality and emphasize their treatment procedures.

Managing Water Scarcity Futures: Identifying Factors Influencing Water Quality, Risk Perception and Daily Practices in Urban Environments after the Introduction of Desalination

“…In other cases, only the concern with chemicals, beyond the knowledge of tap water composition, lead to lower ratings of water quality [5]. In this sense, the perception of safety or risk is another of the main factors influencing the acceptance of tap water for drinking [12,14,15]. It should be noticed that the public perceives tap water quality and its potential and associated health risks regardless of analytical or technical evaluations, which has been defined as the risk perception gap [15].…”

“…In this sense, the perception of safety or risk is another of the main factors influencing the acceptance of tap water for drinking [12,14,15]. It should be noticed that the public perceives tap water quality and its potential and associated health risks regardless of analytical or technical evaluations, which has been defined as the risk perception gap [15]. In addition, risk and tap water quality perception may be influenced by new and controversial hazards of which residents have little personal experience, such as introducing a new raw water source that residents are not used to [5,16].…”

“…Additionally, water supply service deficiencies, the introduction of a new water source in the system, or the variability in the water quality, may affect the concern and dissatisfaction with tap water [5,17,18]. Even though knowledge about the origin of water supply sources is, in principle, weakly associated with poor water quality or high-risk perceptions, this issue has not been analyzed in a context where desalination has been introduced [15]. Likewise, it should be noticed that public knowledge about water supply sources is usually limited [16,21].…”

“…In the second place, other factors that may intervene in tap water quality and risk perception are socio-economic and sociodemographic characteristics of households [5,14,16,23,24]. Among demographics, gender has been the focus of much attention since women tend to rate lower the tap water quality and have higher perceived risks expressing more concern than men about these issues [1,15,22,25,26]. However, this relationship is not always fulfilled [14,27].…”

Public Attitudes towards Digital Water Meters for Households

“…In doing so, we applied the segmentation and classification approach proposed by Brouwer et al [33]. The motivation for using this framework is threefold: Firstly, it was specifically designed in the context of the current study (i.e., the Netherlands); secondly, it has proven its value in several follow-up studies [66], and thirdly, methodological practicality, as it gives an easy method for determining the perspective of individual respondents. To this latter end, as shown in Table 1, each perspective was translated into a set of propositions and was presented in a matrix format, accompanied by the question of which set of propositions (labelled A to D) best represents their individual perceptions.…”