Seyed Mohammad Kazem Sadr

This paper describes the development and application of a simulation tool to assess the impact of water-efficient appliances and greywater recycling strategies on the domestic water consumption and wastewater generation profiles. Two time-series datasets of domestic water consumption in UK households – each consisting of more than 20,000 observations – were used to deduce water use appliance usage patterns as a function of water consumption per use for each water-use appliance and household characteristic (e.g. occupancy). The deduced trends were then used to develop a simulation tool that can generate water consumption and wastewater generation profiles reflecting user input for water use appliances and household characteristics. The inbuilt flexibility in the tool allows investigation of each water use appliance both individually and collectively, and facilitates informed decision-making for devising targeted retrofitting programmes. This research has application for water service provision and policy making globally, with potential impact on both water supply and wastewater management.

Despite considerable efforts to improve water management, India is becoming increasingly water stressed due to multiple factors, including climate change, increasing population, and urbanization. We address one of the most challenging problems in the design of water treatment plants: how to select a suitable technology for a specific scenario or context. The process of decision making first requires the identification of feasible treatment configurations based on various objectives and criteria. In addition, the multiplicity of water quality parameters and design variables adds further complexity to the process. In this study, we propose a novel Decision Support Tool (DST), designed to address and support the above challenges. In this user-friendly tool, both Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO) methods are employed. The integration of MCDA with MOO facilitates the generation of feasible drinking water treatment solutions, identifies optimal options, and ultimately, improves the process of decision making. This implemented approach has been tested for different contexts, including for different types of raw water sources and system implementation scales. The results show that this tool can enhance the process of decision making, supporting the user (e.g., stakeholders and decision makers) to implement the most suitable water treatment systems, keeping in view the trade-offs.

Aim: To explore the relation between water consumption and water use behaviour and attitudes, and devices applied in households in urban areas in India. Methodology and Study Site: This paper presents the results of a domestic water consumption survey carried out in Jaipur, India. A questionnaire containing over 60 questions was developed to collect information on households’ characteristics (e.g. family size, household type, and number of children), indoor and outdoor water use activities and their respective frequencies and durations. Information was also gathered on the volume of water used in each of these activities. Over 90 households of different types (standalone houses and apartments in a university campus and Jaipur city) participated in the survey. The survey results were analysed using cluster analysis and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: The results show that the per capita consumption varies considerably with household type and size. The average water consumption was 183 and 215 litres/person/day for standalone households and apartments, respectively. Water used in bathing and WC's represent the highest proportion of water consumption in both stand-alone houses and apartments. Over 40% of the households reported no use of showers. The per capita water consumption is inversely related to family size especially in stand-alone houses. Conclusion: The information pertaining to water use habits and the qualitative and quantitative analysis can be used as an input to a proposed domestic water efficiency tool (DoWET) which can generate optimal water efficient composite strategies keeping in view a range of sustainability indicators including water saving potential, cost and associated energy consumption of the water saving devices and fixtures available in India.