Data logger-based measurement of household water consumption and micro-component analysis of an intermittent water supply system

Abstract

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Although household water consumption in intermittent water supply (IWS) systems has been estimated through retrospective surveys, structured observations, storage inventories, (limited) metered data, and flowmeters, either exclusively or in combination, these methods are resource-intensive, difficult to standardize, and/or impractical to generalize. To overcome these shortcomings, an original method that employed high-accuracy data loggers to continuously measure the water level in rooftop water tanks at intervals of 30 s for a week in 28 households in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal was verified. The hourly and daily water consumption was calculated using the logged reduction in water level. With 98% median accuracy of determining overall water consumption, average daily water consumption was calculated as 56 L/capita/day. In addition, applying pattern recognition techniques, the water level profiles of various water uses were paired with household water use records to estimate the micro-components. The toilet (31%) was the highest water-consuming use, followed by the kitchen (27%), laundry (16%), shower (13%), and other activities (13%). Measuring water consumption using data loggers is a nondestructive method easily applicable to all IWS systems using rooftop tanks to store water. Furthermore, accuracy of determining overall water consumption is superior to existing methods.