Presenter
Miss. He Chen, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
Co-author(s)
Prof. Xiang Hua He, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research
Sub-theme
2. Promoting Water Efficiency, Productivity and Services
Topic
2-1. Water supply and demand management
Body
With the global climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme drought events are increasing, which has become one of the important disaster types seriously affecting the socio-economic development of China. The continuous aggravation of drought has put the city's domestic water supply under tremendous pressure. Reasonable reductions in domestic water use are an important way to alleviate water shortage during droughts. In this paper, the threshold and contractible proportion of domestic water demand under different drought scenarios were investigated in Hunan Province, China. Furthermore, the socio-psychological factors behind the behavior of household water consumption reduction under different drought scenarios were discussed. In this study, two rounds of extreme drought water use behavior questionnaires were issued, and 4171 samples were collected from China, including 72 samples from Hunan Province. The questionnaires included water use behavior surveys in bathing, washing clothes, flushing toilets, household cleaning, drinking, cooking and other water use links under different scenarios (extreme drought and general drought). Based on the extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB), this work analyzes the main factors that lead to the reduction of household water consumption by structural equation modeling (SEM). Then through the random distribution of the sample data of the main factors in different drought scenarios, the water quota of each water use link in two drought scenarios is calculated. According to the results, the water consumption quota per capita is 146.6 (L/(person·d)) in summer and 134.4 (L/(person·d)) in winter under general drought condition. Meanwhile under extreme drought condition, the water consumption quota per capita is 78.5 (L/(person·d)) in summer and 71.7 (L/(person·d)) in winter. Compared with the general drought conditions, the compressible water use proportion in summer is 46.5%, and that in winter is 46.7%. Our findings may assist policy makers in reducing domestic water consumption. It also can provide technical reference for demand side regulation and management under extreme drought conditions.