Spatiotemporal analysis of water-electricity consumption in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across six socioeconomic sectors in Doha City, Qatar

Ammar Abulibdeh

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117864

Abstract

This study investigates the water – electricity consumption in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across six socioeconomic sectors. Due to inadequate research on spatial modelling of water – electricity consumption in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigated geographical block-level variation in water and electricity consumption in Doha city of Qatar. Spatial analyses were performed to investigate the spatial differences in each sector. Five geospatial techniques in a Geographical Information System (GIS) context were used in the study. Moran’s I, Anselin Local Moran's I, and Getis-Ord Gi∗ statistics tools were used to identify the hot spots and cold spots of water and electricity consumption in each sector. Furthermore, Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) models were employed to investigate the spatial relationship between water and electricity consumption during the pandemic year. The findings show that there is a distinction in water and electricity consumption at the block level across all sectors and over time. Hot spot and spatial regression analysis reveal spatial and temporal heterogeneities in the study area across the six socioeconomic sectors. The intensity of hot spots of water and electricity consumption are found in the southern and western parts of the city due to high population density and the concentration of the commercial and industrial areas. Furthermore, analyzing the spatiotemporal correlation between the water and electricity consumption across the six sectors shows variation within and between these sectors over space and time. The results show a positive relationship between water and electricity consumption in some blocks and over time of each sector. During the lockdown phase, strong positive correlation between water and electricity consumption have exist in the residential sector due to extra water and electricity footprints in this sector. Conversely, the water and electricity consumption were positively correlated but declined in the industrial and commercial sector due to the curtailment in production, economic activities, and reduction in people’s mobility. Mapping the hot spot blocks and the blocks with high relationship between water and electricity consumption could provide useful insight to decision-makers for targeted interventions.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic has been swiping the world since December 2019 resulting in millions of morbidity and mortality cases and forcing people to change their lifestyles
This trend continued during the lockdown phase, when the electricity and water consumption increased in the residential sector because of the stay-at-home policy that forced many employees and students to perform their activities from their homes
The productive farms sector was not affected by the lockdown policy, as the water and electricity consumption increased steadily during all months of the lockdown period compared to con sumption in the same period in 2018 and 2019

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has been swiping the world since December 2019 resulting in millions of morbidity and mortality cases and forcing people to change their lifestyles. The COVID-19 pandemic has made an immensely negative impact on the global economy and imposed a crucial challenge to healthcare systems worldwide. Countries have taken various measures to contain the spread of the disease through social distancing and isolation, lockdowns, early detection, closure of many facilities (i.e., schools, restaurants, non-essential services, etc.) forcing people to spend more time at homes [1,2,3,4]. The lockdown measures and changes in peo ple’s lifestyles have made a direct impact on water and electricity con sumption patterns in many sectors, the commercial and industrial sectors [6,7]. The lockdown policy has resulted in increasing the water and electricity consumption in the residential sector due to a larger occupancy

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