Abstract
The study seeks to determine the public’s Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction behavioural intention in Malaysia. It endeavours to expand the social-psychological behavioural model which is the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) by adding the determinants of environmental knowledge, environmental concern, the respondents’ gender, age group, ethnicity, marital status and education level to predict the public’s behavioural intention to engage in NRW reduction practices. A self-structured questionnaire with face-to-face interview was employed to gather responses from 800 citizens who are currently living in the state of Selangor, the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Pahang, and Johor. Following the subsequent hierarchical linear regression models, the final model has explained 51.3% of the variance in behavioural intention to take part in NRW reduction practices. The study’s findings identify that the factors of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, environmental knowledge, environmental concern, and gender significantly influence the NRW reduction intention. Moreover, the study reveals that ethnicity and education differences have significant influences on the expanded TPB in terms of NRW reduction. This study furthers to the present theory and experience by offering advantageous perception about the application of environmental knowledge and environmental concern on the public’s NRW reduction intention.
Highlights
It is a fact that water resource is the most critical and irreplaceable natural asset, as it serves the purpose of supplying water for agricultural needs, recreation, various industrial demands, social and economic development, and public health (Lamm, Lamm, & Carter, 2015)
Non-Revenue Water (NRW) can be described as the water loss changes between the volume of water embedded into the water distribution system and the volume of water invoiced towards the customers in authorized metered and illegal water consumption (Chan, 2009)
In the context of reducing NRW, when the citizens have a high level of environmental concern (EC) and believe that combating water loss issues is advantageous to the environment and themselves, they will tend to form the appropriate behavioural intention to engage in more NRW practices will increase
Summary
It is a fact that water resource is the most critical and irreplaceable natural asset, as it serves the purpose of supplying water for agricultural needs, recreation, various industrial demands, social and economic development, and public health (Lamm, Lamm, & Carter, 2015). There is a growing need to support and change the sustainable behaviour in conserving the available water and reducing water consumption due to the uprising water stress happening worldwide. A high level of NRW indicates that the water utility is not performing well and negatively impacted due to insufficient of governance, investment, and technical and managerial expertise to ensure sustainable water management (Kingdom, Liemberger, & Marin, 2006). By increasing the awareness of water-related issues among the public, the citizens may be more receptive to reduce water consumption, enhance water conservation and perform NRW reduction actions by reporting any water loss issues to the water utility and engaging in NRW reduction programs. Understanding the determinants that impact the NRW reduction behaviour may help the water-related stakeholders to encourage pro-environmental actions to reduce the NRW level, lessen water consumption, and support water conservation among those living in Malaysia
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