Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the daily behaviors of people by forcing them to spend the majority of their time in their residences, particularly during social distancing measures. The increased time spent at home is expected to influence, among other things, the daily consumption of utilities: specifically, water and energy. A prolonged presence of residents at home during COVID-19 lockdowns might increase strain on water and energy resources, which are mostly from non-renewable sources in several countries, including Kazakhstan; however, such potentially important effects have not yet been studied for the country. The present research aims to evaluate how the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have affected the water and energy consumption in residential housings in cities of varying sizes in Kazakhstan, providing a novel understanding of the effect of pandemic lockdowns on household energy and water consumption. Energy and water consumption data of Almaty, Shymkent, and Atyrau have been first obtained from the local service companies, and then, the usage behavior was analyzed for the periods before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. After, statistical tests were conducted to check the hypotheses regarding the effect of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns on the consumption of energy and water. The findings indicate that residential energy and water consumption increased during the lockdown periods in large and medium cities. Nevertheless, this growth is not highly significant compared to similar non-pandemic timeframes. This result could indicate a particular risk for sustainable resources consumption and put pressure on the supply companies. Moreover, in case of further lockdown measures, current building systems are at risk of increased pressure, and eventually, of failure.
Highlights
The present study aims to assess how the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected household water and energy consumption in residential housings in Kazakhstan’s cities
To analyze the household water and energy consumption in residential houses in Almaty and Shymkent, the water consumption data have been obtained from the water utility company “L.L.P
The variation in energy consumption data has been obtained (1) during a pilot study—from volunteering householders of Almaty (n = 60, survey on behavior patterns related to cooking, entertainment, and lighting use); from (2) official statistics for 2019–2021 from “AlmatyEnergoSbyt,” the energy providing company for Almaty city and Almaty region; and (3) from official statistics from “AtyrauZharyk” for 2018–2021 for
Summary
COVID-19, which started in 2019, resulted in a series of unexpected challenges, including health [1,2,3,4,5], social [6,7,8,9], environmental [10,11,12,13,14] issues which humanity continues to face as of 2021 and must overcome to ensure a sustainable and optimistic future. Issues and challenges related to COVID-19 and lockdowns exist at both macroscopic (e.g., environment, economy, etc.) and microscopic (individual) levels [16]. The microscopic level influences of the pandemic include changes in people’s daily habits and time spent at home, which may result in macroscopic changes such as environmental resources consumption and sustainability of residential buildings [8,17,18]
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