Smart Meters and In-Home Displays to Encourage Water Conservation through Behavioural Change
Urbanization, population growth, climate change and the current increase in water demand have made the adoption of innovative demand management strategies crucial to the water industry. Water conservation in urban areas has to be improved by encouraging consumers to adopt more sustainable habits and behaviours. This includes informing and educating them about their households’ water consumption and advising them about ways to achieve significant savings on a daily basis. This paper presents a study conducted in the context of the European FP7 WISDOM Project. By integrating innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) frameworks, this project aims at achieving a change in water savings. More specifically, behavioural change will be attempted by implementing smart meters and in-home displays in a trial group of selected households within Cardiff (UK). Using this device, consumers will be able to receive feedback and information about their consumption but will also have the opportunity to compare their consumption to the consumption of other consumers and similar households. Following an initial survey, it appeared necessary to implement these in-home displays in a way that matches consumer's motivations to save water. The results demonstrated the importance of various factors influencing people’s daily water consumption. Both the relevant literature on the subject and the results of our survey therefore led us to include within the in-home device a variety of elements. It first appeared crucial to make consumers aware of the economic aspect of water conservation and especially of the significant financial savings that can be achieved by reducing their household’s water consumption on the long term. Likewise, reminding participants of the impact of their consumption on the environment by making them more aware of water scarcity issues around the world will help increasing their motivation to save water. Additionally, peer pressure and social comparisons with neighbours and other consumers, accentuated by the use of online social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, will likely encourage consumers to reduce their consumption. Participants will also be able to compare their current consumption to their past consumption and to observe the consequences of their efforts to save water through diverse graphs and charts. Finally, including a virtual water game within the display will help the whole household, children and adults, to achieve significant reductions by providing them with simple tips and advice to save water on a daily basis. Moreover, by setting daily and weekly goals for them to reach, the game will expectantly generate cooperation between family members. Members of each household will indeed be encouraged to work together to reduce their water consumption within different rooms of the house, such as the bathroom, the kitchen, or the toilets. Overall, this study will allow us to understand the elements that attract consumers the most and the features that are most commonly used by the participants. In this way, we intend to determine the main factors influencing water consumption in order to identify the measures that will most encourage water conservation in both the long and short term.
[1] E. A. Wolters, “Attitude–behavior consistency in household water consumption,” Soc. Sci. J., pp. 1–9, Nov. 2013.
[2] B. Jorgensen, M. Graymore, and K. O’Toole, “Household water use behavior: an integrated model.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 227–36, Oct. 2009.
[3] M. Gilbertson, A. Hurlimann, and S. Dolnicar, “Does water context influence behaviour and attitudes to water conservation?,” Australas. J. Environ. Manag., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 47–60, 2011.
[4] A. Hurlimann, S. Dolnicar, and P. Meyer, “Understanding behaviour to inform water supply management in developed nations--a review of literature, conceptual model and research agenda.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 47–56, Oct. 2009.
[5] A. a. Makki, R. a. Stewart, K. Panuwatwanich, and C. Beal, “Revealing the determinants of shower water end use consumption: enabling better targeted urban water conservation strategies,” J. Clean. Prod., vol. 60, pp. 129–146, Dec. 2013.
[6] K. Kappel and T. Grechenig, “show-me’: Water Consumption at a glance to promote Water Conservation in the Shower,” 2009.
[7] C. K. Makropoulos, K. Natsis, S. Liu, K. Mittas, and D. Butler, “Decision support for sustainable option selection in integrated urban water management,” Environ. Model. Softw., vol. 23, no. 12, pp. 1448–1460, Dec. 2008.
[8] M. Anda, L. G. B. F, J. Brennan, and E. Paskett, “Smart Metering Infrastructure for Residential Water Efficiency: Results of a Trial in a Behavioural Change Program in Perth, Western Australia,” pp. 116–122, 2013.
[9] A. L. Sonderlund, J. R. Smith, and C. Hutton, “Using smart meters for household water consumption feedback: knowns and unknowns,” vol. 00, pp. 1–8, 2014.
[10] “WISDOM - Water Analytics & Intelligent Sensing for Demand Optimised Management.” (Online). Available: http://www.wisdom-project.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[11] J. J. Harou, P. Garrone, A. E. Rizzoli, A. Maziotis, A. Castelletti, and P. Fraternali, “Smart metering, water pricing and social media to stimulate residential water efficiency: opportunities for the SmartH2O project,” vol. 00, 2014.
[12] B. Magoutas, N. Papageorgiu, F. Misichroni, and G. Mentzas, “WATERCITY: Triggering Residential Water Conservation Through Social Persuasive Technology,” in E-proceedings of the 36th IAHR World Congress, 2015, pp. 1–4.
[13] E. Clifford, D. Coakley, E. Curry, V. Degeler, A. Costa, T. Messervey, S.-J. Van Andel, N. Van De Giesen, C. Kouroupetroglou, J. Mink, and S. Smit, “Interactive Water Services: The Waternomics Approach,” 16th Int. Conf. Water Distrib. Syst. Anal. (WSDA 2014), vol. 89, pp. 1058–1065, 2014.
[14] E. Magiera and W. Froelich, “Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management (ISS-EWATUS),” Procedia Eng., vol. 89, pp. 1066–1072, 2014.
[15] “The Smart H20 Project - A European Project on Water Sustainability,” 2014. (Online). Available: http://www.smarth2o-fp7.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[16] “Where Water Supply Meets Demand - WatERP.” (Online). Available: http://www.waterp-fp7.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[17] “WatErnomics.” (Online). Available: http://www.waternomics.eu. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[18] “ISS-EWATUS Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management,” 2015. (Online). Available: http://issewatus.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[19] S. Karjalainen, “Consumer preferences for feedback on household electricity consumption,” Energy Build., vol. 43, no. 2–3, pp. 458–467, Feb. 2011.
[20] D. Vine, L. Buys, and P. Morris, “The Effectiveness of Energy Feedback for Conservation and Peak Demand: A Literature Review,” vol. 2013, no. March, pp. 7–15, 2013.
[21] V. Griskevicius, J. M. Tybur, and B. Van den Bergh, “Going green to be seen: status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation.,” J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., vol. 98, no. 3, pp. 392–404, Mar. 2010.
[22] V. Seyranian, G. M. Sinatra, and M. S. Polikoff, “Comparing communication strategies for reducing residential water consumption,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 41, pp. 81–90, Mar. 2015.
[23] T. Erickson, M. E. Podlaseck, S. Sahu, J. D. Dai, T. Chao, and M. Naphade, “The Dubuque Water Portal: Evaluation of the Uptake, Use and Impact of Residential Water Consumption Feedback,” 2012.
[24] J. Froehlich, S. Patel, J. a. Landay, L. Findlater, M. Ostergren, S. Ramanathan, J. Peterson, I. Wragg, E. Larson, F. Fu, and M. Bai, “The design and evaluation of prototype eco-feedback displays for fixture-level water usage data,” Proc. 2012 ACM Annu. Conf. Hum. Factors Comput. Syst. - CHI ’12, p. 2367, 2012.
[25] B. Randolph and P. Troy, “Attitudes to conservation and water consumption,” Environ. Sci. Policy, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 441–455, Aug. 2008.
[26] R. M. Willis, R. a Stewart, K. Panuwatwanich, P. R. Williams, and A. L. Hollingsworth, “Quantifying the influence of environmental and water conservation attitudes on household end use water consumption.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 92, no. 8, pp. 1996–2009, Aug. 2011.
[27] L. Steg, “Promoting household energy conservation,” Energy Policy, vol. 36, no. 12, pp. 4449–4453, Dec. 2008.
[28] S. Darby, “Making it obvious: designing feedback into energy consumption Sarah Darby Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford,” 2006.
[29] D. L. Rhode and L. D. Ross, “Environmental Values and Behaviors: Strategies to Encourage Public Support for Initiatives to Combat Global Warming,” Virginia Environ. Law J., vol. 26, 2008.
[30] A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice the Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” vol. 211, no. 4481, pp. 453–458, 2007.
[31] V. Corral-Verdugo and J. Q. Pinheiro, “Sustainability, future orientation and water conservation,” Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appliquée/European Rev. Appl. Psychol., vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 191–198, Sep. 2006.
[32] F. J. Sarabia-Sánchez, C. Rodríguez-Sánchez, and A. Hyder, “The role of personal involvement, credibility and efficacy of conduct in reported water conservation behaviour,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 38, pp. 206–216, Jun. 2014.
[33] M. Senbel, V. D. Ngo, and E. Blair, “Social mobilization of climate change: University students conserving energy through multiple pathways for peer engagement,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 38, pp. 84–93, Jun. 2014.
[34] A. Laskey and O. Kavazovic, “Opower,” XRDS Crossroads, ACM Mag. Students, vol. 17, no. 4, p. 47, Jun. 2011.
[35] B. Lowe, D. Lynch, and J. Lowe, “The role and application of social marketing in managing water consumption: a case study,” vol. 26, no. November 2013, pp. 14–26, 2014.
[36] R. Castri, V. De Luca, E. Lobsiger-kägi, C. Moser, and V. Carabias, “Favouring behavioural change of households’ energy consumption through social media and cooperative play,” 2014.
[37] S. Deterding, M. Sicart, L. Nacke, K. O’Hara, and D. Dixon, “Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts,” Proc. 2011 Annu. Conf. Ext. Abstr. Hum. factors Comput. Syst. - CHI EA ’11, p. 2425, 2011.
[38] B. Fogg, Persuasive Technology Usinge Computer to Change What We Think and Do. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2003.
[39] M. Bang, C. Torstensson, and C. Katzeff, “The powerhhouse: A persuasive computer game designed to raise awareness of domestic energy consumption,” Persuas. Technol., pp. 123–132, 2006.
[40] M. Bang, A. Gustafsson, and C. Katzeff, “Promoting new patterns in household energy consumption with pervasive learning games,” Persuas. Technol., pp. 55–63, 2007.
[41] T. Dillahunt, G. Becker, J. Mankoff, and R. Kraut, “Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Changes with a Virtual Polar Bear,” 2008.
[42] V. Corral-Verdugo, R. B. Bechtel, and B. Fraijo-Sing, “Environmental beliefs and water conservation: An empirical study,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 247–257, 2003.
[43] J. Scott, “Rational Choice Theory,” no. 1920, pp. 1–15, 2000.
[44] T. Jackson, “Motivating Sustainable Consumption - A Review of Evidence on Consumer Behaviour and Behavioural Change,” 2005.
[45] A. Gustafsson, C. Katzeff, and M. Bang, “Evaluation of a pervasive game for domestic energy engagement among teenagers,” Comput. Entertain., vol. 7, no. 4, p. 1, 2009.
[46] F. D. Davis, “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology,” vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 319–340, 2008.
[47] K. Buchanan, R. Russo, and B. Anderson, “Feeding back about eco-feedback: How do consumers use and respond to energy monitors?,” Energy Policy, vol. 73, pp. 138–146, Oct. 2014.
[1] E. A. Wolters, “Attitude–behavior consistency in household water consumption,” Soc. Sci. J., pp. 1–9, Nov. 2013.
[2] B. Jorgensen, M. Graymore, and K. O’Toole, “Household water use behavior: an integrated model.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 227–36, Oct. 2009.
[3] M. Gilbertson, A. Hurlimann, and S. Dolnicar, “Does water context influence behaviour and attitudes to water conservation?,” Australas. J. Environ. Manag., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 47–60, 2011.
[4] A. Hurlimann, S. Dolnicar, and P. Meyer, “Understanding behaviour to inform water supply management in developed nations--a review of literature, conceptual model and research agenda.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 47–56, Oct. 2009.
[5] A. a. Makki, R. a. Stewart, K. Panuwatwanich, and C. Beal, “Revealing the determinants of shower water end use consumption: enabling better targeted urban water conservation strategies,” J. Clean. Prod., vol. 60, pp. 129–146, Dec. 2013.
[6] K. Kappel and T. Grechenig, “show-me’: Water Consumption at a glance to promote Water Conservation in the Shower,” 2009.
[7] C. K. Makropoulos, K. Natsis, S. Liu, K. Mittas, and D. Butler, “Decision support for sustainable option selection in integrated urban water management,” Environ. Model. Softw., vol. 23, no. 12, pp. 1448–1460, Dec. 2008.
[8] M. Anda, L. G. B. F, J. Brennan, and E. Paskett, “Smart Metering Infrastructure for Residential Water Efficiency: Results of a Trial in a Behavioural Change Program in Perth, Western Australia,” pp. 116–122, 2013.
[9] A. L. Sonderlund, J. R. Smith, and C. Hutton, “Using smart meters for household water consumption feedback: knowns and unknowns,” vol. 00, pp. 1–8, 2014.
[10] “WISDOM - Water Analytics & Intelligent Sensing for Demand Optimised Management.” (Online). Available: http://www.wisdom-project.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[11] J. J. Harou, P. Garrone, A. E. Rizzoli, A. Maziotis, A. Castelletti, and P. Fraternali, “Smart metering, water pricing and social media to stimulate residential water efficiency: opportunities for the SmartH2O project,” vol. 00, 2014.
[12] B. Magoutas, N. Papageorgiu, F. Misichroni, and G. Mentzas, “WATERCITY: Triggering Residential Water Conservation Through Social Persuasive Technology,” in E-proceedings of the 36th IAHR World Congress, 2015, pp. 1–4.
[13] E. Clifford, D. Coakley, E. Curry, V. Degeler, A. Costa, T. Messervey, S.-J. Van Andel, N. Van De Giesen, C. Kouroupetroglou, J. Mink, and S. Smit, “Interactive Water Services: The Waternomics Approach,” 16th Int. Conf. Water Distrib. Syst. Anal. (WSDA 2014), vol. 89, pp. 1058–1065, 2014.
[14] E. Magiera and W. Froelich, “Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management (ISS-EWATUS),” Procedia Eng., vol. 89, pp. 1066–1072, 2014.
[15] “The Smart H20 Project - A European Project on Water Sustainability,” 2014. (Online). Available: http://www.smarth2o-fp7.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[16] “Where Water Supply Meets Demand - WatERP.” (Online). Available: http://www.waterp-fp7.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[17] “WatErnomics.” (Online). Available: http://www.waternomics.eu. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[18] “ISS-EWATUS Integrated Support System for Efficient Water Usage and Resources Management,” 2015. (Online). Available: http://issewatus.eu/. (Accessed: 15-Aug-2015).
[19] S. Karjalainen, “Consumer preferences for feedback on household electricity consumption,” Energy Build., vol. 43, no. 2–3, pp. 458–467, Feb. 2011.
[20] D. Vine, L. Buys, and P. Morris, “The Effectiveness of Energy Feedback for Conservation and Peak Demand: A Literature Review,” vol. 2013, no. March, pp. 7–15, 2013.
[21] V. Griskevicius, J. M. Tybur, and B. Van den Bergh, “Going green to be seen: status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation.,” J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., vol. 98, no. 3, pp. 392–404, Mar. 2010.
[22] V. Seyranian, G. M. Sinatra, and M. S. Polikoff, “Comparing communication strategies for reducing residential water consumption,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 41, pp. 81–90, Mar. 2015.
[23] T. Erickson, M. E. Podlaseck, S. Sahu, J. D. Dai, T. Chao, and M. Naphade, “The Dubuque Water Portal: Evaluation of the Uptake, Use and Impact of Residential Water Consumption Feedback,” 2012.
[24] J. Froehlich, S. Patel, J. a. Landay, L. Findlater, M. Ostergren, S. Ramanathan, J. Peterson, I. Wragg, E. Larson, F. Fu, and M. Bai, “The design and evaluation of prototype eco-feedback displays for fixture-level water usage data,” Proc. 2012 ACM Annu. Conf. Hum. Factors Comput. Syst. - CHI ’12, p. 2367, 2012.
[25] B. Randolph and P. Troy, “Attitudes to conservation and water consumption,” Environ. Sci. Policy, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 441–455, Aug. 2008.
[26] R. M. Willis, R. a Stewart, K. Panuwatwanich, P. R. Williams, and A. L. Hollingsworth, “Quantifying the influence of environmental and water conservation attitudes on household end use water consumption.,” J. Environ. Manage., vol. 92, no. 8, pp. 1996–2009, Aug. 2011.
[27] L. Steg, “Promoting household energy conservation,” Energy Policy, vol. 36, no. 12, pp. 4449–4453, Dec. 2008.
[28] S. Darby, “Making it obvious: designing feedback into energy consumption Sarah Darby Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford,” 2006.
[29] D. L. Rhode and L. D. Ross, “Environmental Values and Behaviors: Strategies to Encourage Public Support for Initiatives to Combat Global Warming,” Virginia Environ. Law J., vol. 26, 2008.
[30] A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice the Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice,” vol. 211, no. 4481, pp. 453–458, 2007.
[31] V. Corral-Verdugo and J. Q. Pinheiro, “Sustainability, future orientation and water conservation,” Rev. Eur. Psychol. Appliquée/European Rev. Appl. Psychol., vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 191–198, Sep. 2006.
[32] F. J. Sarabia-Sánchez, C. Rodríguez-Sánchez, and A. Hyder, “The role of personal involvement, credibility and efficacy of conduct in reported water conservation behaviour,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 38, pp. 206–216, Jun. 2014.
[33] M. Senbel, V. D. Ngo, and E. Blair, “Social mobilization of climate change: University students conserving energy through multiple pathways for peer engagement,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 38, pp. 84–93, Jun. 2014.
[34] A. Laskey and O. Kavazovic, “Opower,” XRDS Crossroads, ACM Mag. Students, vol. 17, no. 4, p. 47, Jun. 2011.
[35] B. Lowe, D. Lynch, and J. Lowe, “The role and application of social marketing in managing water consumption: a case study,” vol. 26, no. November 2013, pp. 14–26, 2014.
[36] R. Castri, V. De Luca, E. Lobsiger-kägi, C. Moser, and V. Carabias, “Favouring behavioural change of households’ energy consumption through social media and cooperative play,” 2014.
[37] S. Deterding, M. Sicart, L. Nacke, K. O’Hara, and D. Dixon, “Gamification. using game-design elements in non-gaming contexts,” Proc. 2011 Annu. Conf. Ext. Abstr. Hum. factors Comput. Syst. - CHI EA ’11, p. 2425, 2011.
[38] B. Fogg, Persuasive Technology Usinge Computer to Change What We Think and Do. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2003.
[39] M. Bang, C. Torstensson, and C. Katzeff, “The powerhhouse: A persuasive computer game designed to raise awareness of domestic energy consumption,” Persuas. Technol., pp. 123–132, 2006.
[40] M. Bang, A. Gustafsson, and C. Katzeff, “Promoting new patterns in household energy consumption with pervasive learning games,” Persuas. Technol., pp. 55–63, 2007.
[41] T. Dillahunt, G. Becker, J. Mankoff, and R. Kraut, “Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Changes with a Virtual Polar Bear,” 2008.
[42] V. Corral-Verdugo, R. B. Bechtel, and B. Fraijo-Sing, “Environmental beliefs and water conservation: An empirical study,” J. Environ. Psychol., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 247–257, 2003.
[43] J. Scott, “Rational Choice Theory,” no. 1920, pp. 1–15, 2000.
[44] T. Jackson, “Motivating Sustainable Consumption - A Review of Evidence on Consumer Behaviour and Behavioural Change,” 2005.
[45] A. Gustafsson, C. Katzeff, and M. Bang, “Evaluation of a pervasive game for domestic energy engagement among teenagers,” Comput. Entertain., vol. 7, no. 4, p. 1, 2009.
[46] F. D. Davis, “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology,” vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 319–340, 2008.
[47] K. Buchanan, R. Russo, and B. Anderson, “Feeding back about eco-feedback: How do consumers use and respond to energy monitors?,” Energy Policy, vol. 73, pp. 138–146, Oct. 2014.
@article{"International Journal of Business, Human and Social Sciences:72158", author = "Julia Terlet and Thomas H. Beach and Yacine Rezgui", title = "Smart Meters and In-Home Displays to Encourage Water Conservation through Behavioural Change ", abstract = "Urbanization, population growth, climate change and the current increase in water demand have made the adoption of innovative demand management strategies crucial to the water industry. Water conservation in urban areas has to be improved by encouraging consumers to adopt more sustainable habits and behaviours. This includes informing and educating them about their households’ water consumption and advising them about ways to achieve significant savings on a daily basis. This paper presents a study conducted in the context of the European FP7 WISDOM Project. By integrating innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) frameworks, this project aims at achieving a change in water savings. More specifically, behavioural change will be attempted by implementing smart meters and in-home displays in a trial group of selected households within Cardiff (UK). Using this device, consumers will be able to receive feedback and information about their consumption but will also have the opportunity to compare their consumption to the consumption of other consumers and similar households. Following an initial survey, it appeared necessary to implement these in-home displays in a way that matches consumer's motivations to save water. The results demonstrated the importance of various factors influencing people’s daily water consumption. Both the relevant literature on the subject and the results of our survey therefore led us to include within the in-home device a variety of elements. It first appeared crucial to make consumers aware of the economic aspect of water conservation and especially of the significant financial savings that can be achieved by reducing their household’s water consumption on the long term. Likewise, reminding participants of the impact of their consumption on the environment by making them more aware of water scarcity issues around the world will help increasing their motivation to save water. Additionally, peer pressure and social comparisons with neighbours and other consumers, accentuated by the use of online social networks such as Facebook or Twitter, will likely encourage consumers to reduce their consumption. Participants will also be able to compare their current consumption to their past consumption and to observe the consequences of their efforts to save water through diverse graphs and charts. Finally, including a virtual water game within the display will help the whole household, children and adults, to achieve significant reductions by providing them with simple tips and advice to save water on a daily basis. Moreover, by setting daily and weekly goals for them to reach, the game will expectantly generate cooperation between family members. Members of each household will indeed be encouraged to work together to reduce their water consumption within different rooms of the house, such as the bathroom, the kitchen, or the toilets. Overall, this study will allow us to understand the elements that attract consumers the most and the features that are most commonly used by the participants. In this way, we intend to determine the main factors influencing water consumption in order to identify the measures that will most encourage water conservation in both the long and short term.
", keywords = "Behavioural change, ICT technologies, water consumption, water conservation.", volume = "10", number = "2", pages = "537-7", }
