Modeling water consumption in multifamily buildings: a case study in Southern Brazil

Abstract

ABSTRACT Urban water consumption can be analyzed by means of applied research to help promote the development of environmentally sustainable cities. In this study, water consumption models are established for multifamily residential buildings in Southern Brazil using multiple linear regression analysis and cross-validation techniques. Sociodemographic and building characteristics were analyzed in a sample of 78 buildings for a period of 25 months. Six forecast models were obtained which met the assumptions of constant error variance, multicollinearity, autocorrelation, residual diagnosis, and generalization ability, explaining the variations in up to 90.61% of the building monthly water consumption and 68.72% of the per capita daily water consumption. The most significant variables were building age, number of stories, total area per floor and per person, dwellers per room and per apartment, number of bedrooms, type of metering system, presence of swimming pools and presence of alternative water-supply systems.