Abstract
Consumption-based feedback has been demonstrated to encourage water conservation behaviors. Smart meters and digital solutions can support customized feedback and reinforce behavioral change. Yet, most of the studies documenting water conservation effects induced by feedback and smart meter data visualization evaluate them in short-term experimental trials only. Here we show that water conservation behaviors promoted by smart meter-based consumption feedback and digital user engagement interventions might persist in the long term. We developed an analysis of 334 households in Valencia, Spain. We find that approximately 47% of the households engaged in our water conservation program achieved a long-term 8% reduction of volumetric water consumption, compared with pre-treatment observations. Water conservation behaviors persisted more than two years after the beginning of the program, especially for the households receiving sub-daily smart meter information. Our results provide empirical evidence that smart meter-based water consumption feedback and digital user engagement can effectively promote durable conservation behaviors.
Highlights
Changing individual and community water consumption behaviors is essential to achieve community-wide and state-wide water conservation targets and address water security in the near future[1,2,3]
Long-term household water conservation behaviors are fostered by smart meter-based consumption feedback and digital user engagement
Most behavioral studies on water conservation document savings in household water consumption induced by feedback interventions in the short term, often followed by rebounding effects after the experimental trial as conservation awareness fades away[4,5,17]
Summary
Understanding how consumption-based feedback impacts long-term behavior change, before rebound effects emerge, remains an open question, hindered so far by the limited time frame of most behavioral studies and smart water metering trials[4,17]. We quantify for the first time the long-term effects of smart meter-based water consumption feedback and digital user engagement on residential water consumption. We formulate this overarching research question: Can smart meter-based feedback and digital user engagement foster long-term water conservation efforts in the residential sector? The control group had no access to either smart meter-based consumption feedback or the SmartH2O application for the whole duration of the longitudinal study This investigation on long-term residential water consumption behavior changes addresses our main research question from a three-fold angle. By the treatment group (Fig. 1c) suggests that only a subset of the households in the treatment group rebounded the water con-
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