patterns of water: thinking about diversity, demand and consumption

Dr Ali Browne – University of Manchester Dr Ben Anderson – University of Southampton

With: Dr Will Medd (Lancaster University)

Dr Martin Pullinger (University of Edinburgh)

Patterns of Water: Thinking about diversity, demand and consumption

The Menu

• The problem(s) with water– And with averages

• Research program overview• Water ‘practice’ clusters• Insights in depth• Insights for ‘efficiency’

– water and energy

• Future directions

The problem(s) with water

• Over abstraction - WFD– In South East England at least

• It costs to clean and transport– Energy (carbon)

• Growing Demand at Household Level– Population growth, social/technological

change

• Future Supply/Demand Balance Problems– agriculture, domestic, environmental flow

Source: Scottish Water

Source: Scottish Water, 2013

Source: DEFRA, 2011

What do we know?• Water demand is rising• Mean daily consumption

– ~= 150 l/person/day– ~= 130 l/person/day (2030)?

• More single households– more total volume (165 pcc)

• And– Consumption = ƒ(occupancy)– But look at the ranges!

• But that’s about it… Source: SPRG/ARCC-Water Survey, 2011

www.sprg.ac.uk

Well … almost

• ‘Expected’ appliance use– On average

• Actual appliance consumption– Mean l/day– For a few micro-measured households

• So…– Consumption measured as = ƒ(O =

ownership of technology) + ƒ (V = volume) + ƒ(F = frequency of use)

• But difference between what is expected and what is observed for different households is striking

Source: Shove & Medd, 2005


The trouble with averages

• 5 ‘average’ households

– 5 similarly ‘average’ households – same occupancy, average consumption/pcc etc.

– but they all do different things with their appliances!


But what do people do?

• What does this tell us?

• Not about water as a resource but what services it provides. Some households value showering (Derwent) others Bathing (Windermere/Conison), others Laundry (Basenthwaite)

• Water use varies so substantially because of Social Practices (Warde, 2005)

– Habituation– Routine– Practical consciousness– Tacit knowledge – Neither fully conscious nor reflective– Constraints & inter-dependences


The Menu


• Research programme background• Water ‘practice’ clusters• Insights in depth• Insights for ‘efficiency’

– And energy


Research Summary• ARCCC-Water (Adaptation and Resilience in a

Changing Climate)– Large scale representative sample survey of ‘water

practices’– Linkage:

• water consumption from water companies with customer’s permission

– Case studies: Summed usage for (some) water company monitoring areas

• Sustainable Practices Research Group (SPRG) Patterns of Water– Analysis of water consumption

• via Living Costs and Food Survey Data– 22 Qualitative interviews following up from survey– Dishing the Dirt Focus Groups– Festivals, Dirt and Disruption study

Survey aims• Range of practices

– Diversity in range of practices– Nature and range of habits

• Relationships between practices– Clustering of practices (patterns within practices)– Relationships between the different types of practices

• Relationship to water demand– Trying to link practices to water through metering data

• Methodological Experimentation – Can theories of practice be captured in ‘survey format’– Clustering of practices not by demography/values/attitudes

Survey design• Water-using 'stuff‘ (household audit)

• Habits and practices of:– Gardening and car washing– Cleaning– Personal hygiene & care (showering, bathing, washing)– Laundry– Cooking & washing up

• Plus– General socio-demographics– Meter presence– Estimate of most recent bill if metered– Suite of ‘environmental' habits questions

Results Overview• Sample outcomes

– N = 1802• 997 = ‘true’ sample• 805 ‘case study’ sample

•Linked Data - Limitations– 769 were metered– 282 agreed to linkage

• We received data for only 158• Only 73 of these were metered

Results Overview: Bathing• ½ respondents

never have a bath

• ‘7 showers a week’

• 27.3% still brush their teeth with the tap running!– 16-24 and 75+

more likely to do this

Results Overview: Gardening• 36% have no

outdoor lawn or garden to water

• Of those who do– 26% don’t water– Waterers: More

people water with watering can or bucket than any other method!

• How people describe their outdoor space– important in the

cluster analysis

Results Overview: Laundry

• 2-3 loads per week ‘norm’– Irrespective of

household size

Results Overview: Laundry• 2-3 loads per

week ‘norm’– Irrespective of

household size• Reasons for

laundry varied• Hand washing

– Very rare– 2/3rds never – 15% occasionally– 9% 1 per week

The Menu



– And energy


Clusters of Practice(s)

• Question:– Amongst the diversity, are there some

patterns in the ways that practices are ‘done’ across a population?

How often/Frequency How varied/complex

Technology Meanings

Outsourcing/infrastructure Efficiency

Example: Washing

Bubbles= % of people participating in that aspect of practice

e.g., simple daily showering big bubble at 0 on outsourcing = most don’t shower outside the house

40%

And more…

• All at:– www.sprg.ac.uk/projects-fellow

ships/patterns-of-water– Methods– Further description of each of

the clusters + qual data linkages

– Highlights dynamics

• Discussion of – Benefits/limitations– Future trends– Interventions for diversity (not

the average)

And what do they add?

• An understanding of the diversity of water use, and that there is ‘no average’

• The clusters account for ~ 20% l/day variation

But…• Cluster membership – not easy to predict!

• As we thought, socio-demographics and attitudes are mostly irrelevant to the way that people perform practices related to water in their homes.

Low Frequency Showering

Attentious Cleaning

High Frequency Bathing

Low Frequency Bathing

Out and About

Age Number of children Household Composition Gender

Number of earners

Number of cars Accommodation

Tenure Environmental values

The Menu



– And energy


The Importance of Qualitative Data

• Eliza is a 45-54 year old housewife who lives in a semi-detached house with a large garden in northern London with her husband (45-54), which they own outright and share (occasionally) with their two daughters who are at university.

• In the survey Eliza said that she showered 2 times a week, and flannel washed 7 times a week. In the survey she reported that the shower is used to get clean, because it’s quick, after sport, and to cool down, and that she uses the flannel wash simply to ‘get clean’.

• She was identified as belonging to the Low Frequency Showering group in the cluster analysis reflected in her early comments about bathing…

The Importance of Qualitative Data• Eliza: I’d say for me personally, I probably have more baths now because my

children are grown up so I have more leisure time [laughs] and I consider a bath as a leisure activity whereas having a shower is what you do to get clean. […]

• Interviewer: So do you have a shower every day? • Eliza: no, not necessarily. Every couple of days or whatever; it depends what

I've been doing. The thing that changes, ah.... well obviously the heat makes a massive amount of difference, because you get really sweaty and things. And to be honest when it is cold you don’t particularly feel like having a shower in this house because it is quite a cold house. Ummm and also obviously what you have been doing. We do loads of gardening and you get absolutely filthy when you come out of the garden or if you've been exercising. Occasionally I will get dragged on a cycle ride or go for a long walk; or even to be honest if you have been to London on the tube then you feel really awful when you get home. […]

• Interviewer: so did you used to work in London or do you still work in London?• Eliza: I did yes Interviewer: when you had that regular commute in, were your

habits different such as did you shower more?• Eliza: my entire lifestyle was different so yes. I probably washed much more

because when I was working you have to make yourself look presentable for going to work etc. Now, if I am just spending my day in the garden or going to Sainsburys then I don’t really care that much so you don’t need to worry about washing your hair!

Insights

• Eliza could reflect qualitatively on how her practices had changed over time as a function of retirement; changing work and leisure practices; changing ideas of what it was to be ‘presentable’; changing travel patterns (no longer catching commuter trains and tubes into London); and having children who are grown up and rarely home and more time to relax.

• These were all issues we failed to capture in the quantitative data due to restrictions in the length of the survey.

• She also revealed in the interview that she actually enjoys a weekly bath which was not revealed in her quantitative survey responses.

• From the integration of the qualitative and quantitative data in this example, it is possible to speculate on the potential change from Simple Daily Showering to Low Frequency Showering across a washing practitioners life course (Shove, et al., 2012).

Demographic Change and/or Changes across Lifecourse

The Menu



– And energy


Insights for ‘efficiency’

• Attitudes not that relevant • ‘Practices’ help to explain

variation– Across ‘similar’ households– With similar appliances– And similar accommodation

• Uses are habitual, routine & not fully conscious nor reflective– So difficult to change

• Implications for i) thinking about interventions and ii) thinking about future trajectories

Energy/Water Nexus• Hot water!• You can eco-tech all you like

– But it’s what people do with it that matters

• Smart Demand needs a handle on– Habits, routines, images, skills, stuff.– Networks of demand– Cultural, social, technological change

• And ways of ‘targeting’ interventions– That don’t rely on ‘demographics’ + ‘values’ e.g., IDEAL project - Links between ‘meanings’,Infrastructures/stuff, practice e.g., Unilever Project (Browne)

The Importance of Images, Skills and Stuff

IMAGES/MEANINGS

How is the activity represented, valued; what is seen to be

‘sustainable’ behaviour; desirable bathroom

behaviour; what cleanliness or comfort is.

SKILLSWhat types of routines

and practices are promoted? Is one type of bathing (e.g., showers) prioritised over another (e.g., flannel washing, less than daily baths

etc)

STUFFWhat is available?

What isn’t available? How

does it promote/restrict diversity? What

opportunities are there to cater for

diversity of practice?

Splash Concept Prototype – Lenneke Kuijer TU Delft

Distributed influences on the creation of demand

= distributed intervention

i.e., not just utility companies!

Key insights

• Practical– Practices help to understand ‘demand’– We need more ‘linked’ studies

• Actual consumption & reported practices

• Methodological– Quantitative approaches have a role to

understand patterns across populations – Qualitative integration enables deeper

insight Interventions and futures

The Menu



– And energy


Future directions

• UKWIR, DEFRA, Waterwise, Water Companies– Significant interest– Potential new approach to segmentation?

• Key value:– Beyond the average– Opens up diversity of points of intervention– Opens up (ways of tracking) trajectories of demand

• Job to do:– Replication of survey and linkage to actual

consumption– Encourage move beyond attitudinal segmentation

towards ‘what people do’ – methodological adoption

– This is seen as risky but worthwhile!

Wider ‘practices’ threads• Related Projects on Smart Demand & Smart Energy

– DEMAND www.demand.ac.uk – IDEAL www.energyoracle.org – DANCER www.dancer-project.co.uk – Unilever Partnership (water use in D&E markets)

• www.sci.manchester.ac.uk/business

Contact Details– Alison Browne (@dralibrowne)

[email protected]– Ben Anderson (@dataknut)

[email protected]– Martin Pullinger

[email protected]

Outputs• Pullinger, M., Browne, A.L., Anderson, B., & Medd, W. (2013). Patterns of Water: The water related practices of

households in southern England, and their influence on water consumption and demand management. Lancaster University, Lancaster. http://www.sprg.ac.uk/projects-fellowships/patterns-of-water/patterns-of-water-final-report

• Browne, A.L., et al (2013). Patterns of Water: Resource Pack. Lancaster University Lancaster.

• Browne, A.L., Pullinger, M., et al (2013). The performance of practice: An alternative approach to attitudinal and behavioural ‘customer segmentation’ for the UK Water Industry. SPRG Working Paper 5. The University of Manchester, Manchester.

• Browne, A.L., Anderson, B., and Medd, W (2013). Developing novel approaches to tracking domestic water demand under uncertainty – A reflection on the “up scaling” of social science approaches in the United Kingdom. Water Resources Management, 4 (27) 1013-1035, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0117-y

• Dessai, S., Browne, A.L. & Harou, J.J. (2013). Introduction to the Special Issue on “Adaptation and Resilience of Water Systems to an Uncertain Changing Climate” Water Resources Management, 4 (27).

• Browne, A.L., Medd, W., Pullinger, M., & Anderson, B. (2013). Patterns of Water: laundry, bathroom and gardening practices of households in the South East of England. In Britain in 2013. ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council). London, UK.

• Browne, A.L., Medd, W., Pullinger, M., & Anderson, B. (2013 in press). Distributed demand and the sociology of water efficiency. In Adeyeye, Kemi (Ed), Water Efficiency in the Built Environment: A review of practice and theory. University of Brighton.

• Browne, A.L., Pullinger, M.P., Medd, W. & Anderson, B (2014 pub.). Patterns of Practice: A reflection on the development of quantitative methodologies reflecting everyday life related to household water consumption in the UK. International Journal of Social Research Methodology http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2014.854012 (early online)

• Pullinger, M., Browne, A.L., Anderson, B., & Medd, W. (in press 2013). New directions for understanding household water demand. AQUA – Journal of Water Supply: Research and Technology.

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