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Rural domestic water consumption behavior: A case study in Ramjerd area, Fars province, I.R. Iran
A.R. Keshavarzia,, M. Sharifzadehb, A.A. Kamgar Haghighia, S. Amina, Sh. Keshtkara, A. Bamdada
a b

Water Department, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I.R. Iran Agricultural Extension and Education, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, I.R. Iran

art i cle info

Article history: Received 6 May 2005 Received in revised form 28 December 2005 Accepted 16 January 2006 Keywords: Domestic water use Rural households Rural water consumption Ramjerd Iran

A B S T R A C T

Identifying the factors that affect domestic water demand and consumption is very important in management of available regional water resources. In this study, relationships between water consumption and rural household activities are determined by comparing a snapshot of water consumption with rural household behavior of low, medium and high water consumers. In addition, the factors affecting water consumption in rural households are also determined. The data for this study were collected from a survey of 653 rural households in 33 villages of Ramjerd area, Fars Province, in southern Iran, using a simple random sampling technique. The daily water consumption data for a 5-year period (19992004) were used. Results of the study revealed that the daily average water consumption for the area was found to be 121.7 l per person per capita per day (Lpcd) (SD 59.2). Water consumption was also found to be signicantly correlated with explanatory variables such as household size and age of households head. Finally, the results of discriminant function analysis showed that in rural households, garden size, greenhouse size, and garden watering times per month with tap treated water are associated with water consumption. & 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1.

Introduction

Domestic fresh water is a fundamental requirement for human welfare and economical activities. Water supply and treatment for drinking and domestic use are long processes and sometimes cost 10 times more than irrigation water due to limitations in available clean water resources (FPRWWD, 2004). In Iran, mountains and deserts with low availability of suitable water account for 52% of the total 1.65 million km2. Although the long-term average precipitation is about 250 mm/yr, most of the territory receives less than 100 mm/ yr of rainfall and the annual withdrawal of water has already exceeded the renewable water resources (FPRWWD, 2004).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 711 2286278; fax: +98 711 2286130.

From the total water consumption in Iran, 95% is used in agriculture, 4% for domestic water supply and 1% in industry (FAO, 1998). In rural areas, especially in arid and semi-arid regions access to a sustainable and adequate supply of clean water is critical. Therefore, determining the number of people who will be served, their per capita use, and the factors that affect the water consumption is very important in management of water resources appropriate as potable water. The domestic water furnished to each community can be classied according to its ultimate use such as domestic, commercial, industrial, public, loss and waste (Steel and McGhee, 1979). Domestic water consumption which is a signicant component of the total water use varies according to living standards of the consumers in urban and rural areas

E-mail address: keshavrz@shirazu.ac.ir (A.R. Keshavarzi). 0043-1354/$ - see front matter & 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.watres.2006.01.021

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Table 1 Outdoor water consumption patterns

Caspian Sea Tehran

Villages
Study Area

Fars

Fig. 1 A general map of Iran showing the location of the study area.

Activity

Ramjerd Area

Garden Greenhouse Livestock Yard Car washb

The activities are listed in column 1. The term car wash refers to small scale home uses.

(Thomas, 1998). However, rural households use water for both indoor and outdoor purposes. Indoor water use includes consumption for drinking, cooking, hygiene (bathing, laundry, and cleaning), and miscellaneous purposes such as air conditioners. Outdoor activities include car washing, livestock watering, garden and small-scale greenhouse watering, and yard cleaning. Sobsey (2001) pointed out that the introduction of water supply and treatment technology without consideration of the socio-cultural aspects of the community is unlikely to be successful or sustainable. Sandiford et al. (1990) investigated the effect of distance from the source of water supply on domestic water consumption in rural areas of developing countries. Data analyzing from 1029 different households in Nicaragua collected between May 1986 and December 1988 showed that a decrease in the distance to the water source from 1000 to 10 m is associated with an increase in per capita water consumption of 20% (Sandiford et al., 1990). Also, there were major differences in the quantity of water used by piped and unpiped households (IIED, 2003). Results of the study conducted by Thompson et al. (2001) in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda showed that piped households used on average almost three times more water per capita than unpiped households. Hunnings (1996) showed that the quantity of water used depended on the number of people using the dwelling (household size), how water is used, level of maintenance of the water supply system, and some other factors such as level of education and age of the head of household. Also families with the mother having 6 years of elementary education used 17% more water than families where the mother had no formal education. The families with similar education for the father used 12% greater per capita water consumption (Sandiford et al., 1990). Other factors which affect rural water use are number of households and households size (Sandiford et al., 1990; Schefter, 1990). Results of a study conducted in Israel, Jordan, and Syria from 1975 to 1994 revealed that in Israel the increase in domestic water use could be statistically better explained by the growth of the number of households than by population growth (Martin, 1999). The result of the above study for Jordan and Syria, where an overall increase in household size could be observed, showed that the rate of growth of the number of households statistically accounted for a smaller portion of the increase in domestic water use

Water resource

Ghanat

Spring

n (%)

Watering times /month

Area (m2) or Number of activity

Households with activitya

326 121 247 100 232

53.1 19.7 46.7 100 43.9

19.42 4.40 20.38 192.25

39.71 5.89 45.65 175.63

SD

5.57 8.85 4.85 6.02 3.36

3.83 5.37 0.70 6.52 4.16

SD

0 0 0 0 3(1.5)

19(5.9) 0 7(3) 15(3.50) 19(9.3)

n (%)

Well

0 0 0 0 1(0.50)

n (%)

1(0.3) 0 7(3) 1(0.20) 15(7.3)

River

n (%)

3.1(93.8) 119(100) 217(93.9) 415(96.3) 167(81.5)

Piped

n (%)

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Table 2 Indoor water consumption patterns Facilities n % Times/month x SD Spring n (%)

Bathing Air conditioner 492 362 93.2 68.6 30.85 36.31 0 0

Water resource Well n (%)

0 0

Ghanat n (%)
0 0

River n (%)
0 0

Pipe n (%)
492(100) 362(100)

Table 3 Sample prole of domestic water consumption, by the households in Ramjerd, Iran Water consumption groups Level Usage (Lpcd)
o80 80150 4150 129 243 150 24.7 46.6 28.7

Low Medium High

than the rate of population growth. Also, a study conducted by Gazzinelli et al. (1998) revealed that certain socio-economic factors, house quality, type of water source, and a utility index were signicantly correlated with water use. The International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade, 19811990, emphasized primarily on technical aspects, while 1992 Dublin Principles, which were developed at a conference of water specialists, stressed that water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners, and policy-makers (including women) at all levels (Huggins, 2000). Although water management problems are the most important issue in Iran, little study has been conducted to solve them. In the present study attempts are made to determine factors affecting water consumption patterns and to identify strategies to reduce water use in rural districts in southern Iran. Various aspects of water consumption behavior, are also investigated. Specically the aims of this study are determination of

A simple random sampling was performed to rural households of 33 villages of Ramjerd region, 30 Km west of Marvdasht city and 60 Km North of Shiraz, in the Fars Province. The region is known as center of agricultural production in Iran. Fig. 1 shows the location of the study area. Ten percent of the households in each village were selected randomly. The total number of samples selected was 653 rural households of which 522 complete responses were received. The data were collected between May 2004 and January 2005 by structural interviews. The daily water consumption data was for a 5-year period (19992004). The sources of domestic water supply in the study area include piped treated water supply, which is pumped from the Karst wells. Statistics used in this study were; frequency, percentage, means, standard deviation, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation coefcient and discriminant function analysis using SPSS.

2.1.

Socio-economic characteristics of the study area

 relationships between water consumption and activities,

comparing

 behavior of low, medium and high water consumers, and

identication of

 factors affecting water consumption in rural households.

The cultural structure of the villages in the area of the study is mostly dominated by rural and traditional attributes. A majority of the households in all villages of the study area belong to the category of small to medium farmers with intensive farming. Major agricultural products in the area are wheat, rice and corn, which are cultivated by semi-mechanized and/or traditionally labored methods. The agricultural water in the study area is provided by dam, river and agricultural wells. The agricultural lands are usually irrigated by lined canals, which are discharged from the Doroodzan dam and are drained by drainage networks. In addition to the agricultural activities, some of the households are keeping the livestock in their house and/or in the farm. All villages have primary school with regular classes. Some also have secondary school. Some of the villages have medical facilities with non-resident staff. The dominant religion of the people in the study area is Islam.

2.

Materials and methods

3.

Results and discussion

In this study, descriptive research methods are combined with a survey research. The survey instrument was a questionnaire addressing domestic water use patterns, and individual characteristics (i.e., age, education level, and household size).

The study subjects were categorized in such a way as to overrepresent households with low, medium and high consumers. Tables 1 and 2 provide descriptive statistics for the sample population including sample size for each variable, mean, and standard deviation.

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3.1.
1

Basic characteristics of the study area

As previously mentioned, household activities were categorized into indoor and outdoor activities. Outdoor activities requiring water usage are gardening, greenhouse cultivation, and animal husbandry (Table 1). According to Table 1, 53.1% (n 362) of sampled households had gardens, 19.7% (n 121) had greenhouses and 46.7% (n 247) kept livestock near their house. The most important water source for the above activities was tap treated water, providing 93.8%, 100% and 93.9% of water for the above activities, respectively. As shown in Table 2, participant indoor activities were grouped into bathing and having air conditioners. Members of 93.2% (n 492) of the households in this study bathed in their own house and 68.6% (n 362) of homes had air conditioner. In this study, the mean water consumption was 121.70 l per person per capita per day (Lpcd) (SD 59.18 Lpcd, n 522). In order to examine the reasons for observed differences, households were divided into three groups: low (o80 Lpcd), medium (80150 Lpcd) and high (4150 Lpcd) water use, as shown in Table 3. According to this table, the percentage of water consumption groups are classied as; 24.7%, 46.6% and 28.7%, respectively for low, medium and high consumers. To understand relationship between water consumption in rural households and variables affecting the consumption, a correlation matrix is constructed using 15 variables (Table 4). As it can be seen from the correlation matrix, there was a signicant correlation between water consumption and such variables as size of household and age of the head of household. The most important variable affecting water consumption was household size which had a signicant negative correlation with water consumption (r 0:29, po0:05). That is, in households with larger families, average water consumption per person is reduced. This is consistent with the assumption that some water uses are relatively independent of the size of the family (e.g., outdoor uses, uses for cooking, cleaning, etc.), so that while total water use per household rises, per capita water use falls as family size grows. Similar ndings have been reported by Schefter (1990) and Martin (1999), emphasizing that domestic water consumption is inuenced by the increase in the number of single-family homes. The association between water consumption and household size demonstrated that increase in water consumption can be better explained by the growth of the number of households than by population growth. Another variable which showed a statistically signicant correlation with domestic water consumption was head of households age. Table 4 shows that there is a positive signicant relationship between head of households age and amount of domestic water consumption (r 0:17, po0:05). This may be the result of different attitudes toward environmental issues, where older individuals possess less information about and give less attention to water conservation. Table 4 also reveals that the number of livestock kept in each household had the expected positive correlation with water consumption (r 0:11), but this relation was not statistically signicant. This result was due to the fact that different groups of water consumers were not different in number of domestic unit kept in their own houses. Addition-

14

Table 4 Correlation matrix of the relationship between household water consumption and 14 independent variables

Water consumption/person/day Garden area Garden watering times/month Greenhouse area Greenhouse watering times/month Livestock no. Livestock feeding Livestock washing Yard area Yard washing times/month Car wash times/month Bathing times/month Household size Head of household age Head of household education

1 0.08 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.11 0.00 0.08 0.02 0.06 0.09 0.03 0.3a 0.17a 0.06 Signicant at po0:01. Signicant at po0:05.
b a

1 0.06 0.01 0.10 0.01 0.01 0.28 0.13b 0.02 0.01 0.04 0.07 0.02 0.02

1 0.05 0.13 0.01 0.10 0.36b 0.03 0.25a 0.25b 0.09 0.06 0.11b 0.01

1 0.41a 0.14 0.09 0.41 0.04 0.13 0.25 0.01 0.03 0.11 0.16

1 0.27b 0.01 0.29 0.06 0.05 0.16 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.11

1 0.13b 0.20 0.02 0.03 0.07 0.15b 0.11 0.07 0.12

1 0.01 0.01 0.14 0.06 0.06 0.00 0.08 0.10

1 0.07 0.46a 0.05 0.00 0.15 0.08 0.05

1 0.08 0.04 0.08 0.07 0.07 0.04

1 0.13 0.09 0.01 0.10 0.04

10

1 0.02 0.01 0.05 0.04

11

1 0.20a 0.00 0.11

12

1 0.26a 0.08

13

1 0.56

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Table 5 Comparison of mean scores of characteristics among three groups of domestic water consumers Variable Low
Garden area Garden watering times/month Greenhouse area Greenhouse watering times Livestock no. Livestock water use Livestock washing Car washing times/month Bathing times/month Yard area Yard washing times/month Household size Households head age 21.25a 5.31a 4.64a 8.65a 19.34a 4.85a 2.00a 3.97a 30.39a 177.50a 6.65a 6.36b 44.11a

Water consumption groups Medium

20.00a 5.79a 4.02a 9.33a 15.53a 4.86a 2.14a 3.26a 33.56a 230.56a 5.97a 6.16b 46.71a

F High
15.44a 5.29a 4.79a 8.41a 29.82a 4.90a 2.24a 3.00a 27.65a 186.72a 5.61a 5.02a 49.66b 0.54 0.55 0.17 0.31 1.99 0.08 0.04 0.54 1.15 0.92 0.56 20.48 6.13

0.57 0.57 0.84 0.73 0.13 0.91 0.95 0.58 0.31 0.39 0.57 0.00 0.00

Note: Mean scores that share common superscript in each row were not signicantly different at po0:05 level on Tukey post hoc tests. The dimensions are in Lpcd.

Table 6 Water consumption in rural communities of different regions Proles

Hunnings (1996) Gazzinelli et al. (1998) Gazzinelli et al. (1998) Hartung (2001) Hartung (2001) Hartung (2001) Hartung (2001) Milestone report (2001) FPRWWD (2004) This study

Rural communities
Virginia, USA Latin America Rural African China Sri Lankans South India East African Kyenjojo, Uganda Fars Province, Iran Ramjerd area

Average water consumption

284 Lpcd 40 Lpcd 125 Lpcd 89 Lpcd 3654 Lpcd 1442 Lpcd 523 Lpcd (from October to December) and 619 Lpcd from (January to April) 1123 Lpcd 250 Lpcd (Shiraz city average water consumption is 325 Lpcd) 121.70 Lpcd

ally, the major livestock were usually taken to the farm of the owner during the day; hence, most of the water is consumed by these animals during the day from the eld water resources, e.g., agricultural wells. To better understand the relation between water consumption patterns and some independent variables, one-way Anova statistics was used to compare rural households activities with respect to three groups of users. The results, shown in Table 5, reveal that water consumption is signicantly different among participants of different household size (F 20:48, po0:05). In other words, households with higher per capita water consumption were those with smaller families x 5:02. This nding conrms the results of Schefter (1990) and Martin (1999). According to the ndings in Table 5, per capita consumption was higher where the head of household was older x 49:66 (F 6:13, po0:05). The variability of water consumption depends normally on water availability and cultural behavior or habits of water consumers (Milestone Report, 2001). But generally the range of domestic water use has been reported as 75380 Lpcd (Steel

and McGhee, 1979). While it is believed that the amount of indoor water use remains fairly constant throughout the year, outdoor residential water use varies greatly depending on geographical location and seasonal variation. Since wastewater consists primarily of efuent ow from indoor uses, decreased indoor water use will also result in less wastewater and fewer treatment problems. In Table 6, the average water consumption in rural area of different regions in the world is reported. Table 6 indicates that the water consumption is highly based on some behavioral and cultural aspects. Building a predictive model of group membership based on observed characteristics of each case, a discriminant function was generated to determine variables affecting rural water consumption levels. Of 15 variables studied in this research, 3 variables were entered into the model as factors affecting and determining water use behavior. The water consumption model for the 3 variables is represented by following relationship. WC 0:882 GA 0:872 GWTM 1:66 GHA;

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where WC is the water consumption (Lpcd); GA the garden area (m2), GWTM the garden watering times/month, and GHA the greenhouse area (m2), Wilks Lambda 0.30, sig. 0.62, w2 1:77. The value of the Lambda Coefcient (0.30) and its signicance (40.05) show that statistically there is no difference between discriminant scores and households, which grouped as low, medium and high water consumers. In other words, the model is not able to differentiate between these three groups. Therefore, additional variables need to be considered for the determination of the difference between the groups.

R E F E R E N C E S

4.

Conclusions

Water conservation is important in ensuring a sustainable future for rural households especially in arid and semi arid regions like Fars province in Iran. Investigating rural domestic water consumption pattern in the study area showed that household size and age of the households head affect per capita water consumption. Other descriptive and behavioral variables were not shown to be statistically signicant in explaining the pattern of water consumption. Finally, the results of discriminant function analysis showed that in rural households, three factors garden size, greenhouse size, and garden watering times per month with tap treated water are associated with water consumption. Also, the relationship between households head education and water consumption was found to be negative. It is obvious that the higher the educational level of the individual, the more is the concern to use water for hygiene. Furthermore, factors such as religious obligations, average and marginal tap water price, personal and household income, and climate condition should be considered in future studies.

Acknowledgments
The authors thank Professor John J. Boland from the Johns Hopkins University for reading the manuscript and his constructive comments and suggestions. Also the authors gratefully acknowledge the support given by Fars Province Rural Water and Wastewater Department and Water Department (FPRWWD) and staffs of Agricultural College, Shiraz University.

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