A Forecast of Industrial and Commercial Drinking Water Consumption in Hamburg

Abstract

This paper reports about a forecast of drinking water consumption in Hamburg up to the year 2045 which was done in cooperation of the Institute for Social-Ecological Research with the Ifo Institute. While the Institute for Social-Ecological Research was responsible for the drinking water demand of private households, the Ifo Institute undertook a long-term forecast of the industrial and commercial drinking water consumption. Comparable water demand forecasts for other cities or regions treat the industrial water consumption compared to domestic consumption rather rudimentary. The innovation of this forecast versus previous, conventional approaches is the choice of the workforce instead of the population as a reference point for the water requirements of enterprises. It is described in this paper how the problems of predicting industrial and commercial water consumption based on limited information were solved. Forecasts of sectoral employment were completed by determining the specific water needs for each sector and by assumptions about efficiency improvements in drinking water consumption. Those assumptions were secured through written and oral inquiries of major customers of the Hamburg Waterworks and experts from the water sector.