Factors Affecting Domestic Water Consumption on the Spanish Mediterranean Coastline

Abstract

During the last decades on the Spanish Mediterranean coastline there has been a great development of low-density urban areas, as well as a change in the sociodemographic structures, especially in the municipalities that have developed a residential tourism model. Likewise, urban and tourist development have stressed the balance between the availability of water resources and urban water demands, generating situations of scarcity that might be aggravated by climate change. This study identifies the determinants of water consumption on the Spanish Mediterranean coastline, focusing on the variables related to urban land uses and socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables at the municipal level using an ordinary least square (OLS) and a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. The GWR model results substantially improved the results of the OLS model, explaining 88.27 percent of the variance in domestic water consumption and solving the spatial autocorrelation problem of some independent variables. The most influential variables include the percentage of second homes or the percentage of residential properties with swimming pools at the municipal level. These characteristics must be considered to develop demand management policies and an updated hydrological planning to ensure urban supply in a future with less available water resources.