What is the Impact of COVID-19 on Residential Water Use?

Abstract

The characteristics of residential water use (RWU) can be impacted by climate change and anthropogenic factors. This study explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the temperature rise in RWU. First, the change in RWU was estimated based on temperature using a deep learning technique and compared with the observed RWU. As a result, there was an increase in estimated RWU due to the increase in temperature, similar to previous studies. However, the estimated RWU was smaller than the observed RWU. Second, we explored the causes of RWU that did not increase as expected. The reason for the lower-than-expected observations could be found in the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases. As the number of new confirmed cases increased, the observed RWU decreased in a linear relationship. Due to the restrictions on gatherings of more than 5 people and restrictions on public facilities and bathhouses due to social distancing measures, commercial, public and bathhouse water use has decreased compared to before COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic affected RWU, which was less than the annual average in 2021. The increase in water consumption due to climate change was temporarily controlled by the COVID-19 pandemic. A sustainable long-term plan is needed to maintain this environmental benefit because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can also contribute to preventing future epidemics.