1. M. SOFIA RODRIGUEZ MCGOFFIN
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719 USA
ALEXANDER MAAS
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA
EVALUATING THE INFLUENCE OF HOUSEHOLD
CHARACTERISTICS ON WATER DEMAND
2. RESEARCH ON DEMAND MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIES
• Scholarship has focused on the effects on consumption of:
• Water efficient technology
• Price increases
• Restrictions
• Weather
• Household characteristics
• Demographics
More research is needed to investigate how other characteristics
might affect consumption.
3. GAP AND FOCUS OF OUR STUDY
• We fill a gap in knowledge about the relationship between
environmental attitudes and household consumption.
• We want to know:
1. Does being environmentally conscious change consumptive
behavior?
2. Do environmentally conscious people respond differently to changes
in the price of water?
3. Do they respond differently to changes in temperature and
precipitation?
4. HYPOTHESIS
• We hypothesized that the environmental motivation to conserve
would be related to lower household consumption (ceteris
paribus).
• To test our hypothesis we assessed how water use levels
change with respect to household characteristics as reported in
a city-wide telephone survey.
5. WATER DEMAND IN FORT COLLINS, COLORADO
• Our study takes place
in Fort Collins,
Colorado where water
demand is split evenly
between commercial
and residential uses.
6. MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN FORT COLLINS
• Strategies for conserving water on the
residential side of demand have
included:
• A program that employs home water
efficiency reports
• An Increasing Block Rate (IBR)
structure
• An appliance rebate program
• Home efficiency loan program
7. METHODS
• Survey data collected from November 2011 through October
2014 and billing data from 2008-2014 detailed information
about:
• Participant environmental perspectives
• Consumer response to price increases
• Customer seasonal consumption
• Finally, we specified multiple regression models to investigate
the relationship between these traits and water demand.
9. DO ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS PEOPLE RESPOND DIFFERENTLY
TO CHANGES IN THE PRICE OF WATER AND TO CHANGES IN
TEMPERATURE AND PRECIPITATION?
10. DO ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS PEOPLE RESPOND DIFFERENTLY
TO CHANGES IN THE PRICE OF WATER AND TO CHANGES IN TEMPERATURE
AND PRECIPITATION?
11. WHAT DO THESE RESULTS MEAN FOR THE
INITIAL HYPOTHESIS?
• Households interested in conservation do consume less.
• Households motivated to conserve for the environment do not
save significantly more than households motivated by cost or
convenience.
13. FUTURE WORK
• Further research should replicate this study in different
locations.
• Implications for how state and local agencies address
conservation issues.
Because responsiveness to regulations is dependent on several factors.
To address our hypothesis…
Table1 shows the individual effects of those factors for C&C motivated groups and E&S motivated groups. The stars on this table simply mean they are significantly different from 0. The coefficients for each group are not significantly different except for in price. It may be that altruists might respond more to price.
Table2 shows the mean responses for E&S motivated folks and the interaction term shows the difference between E&S and C&C people. If the interaction term isn't significant it means the groups aren't significantly different.
