Higher Education Institutions’ Students’ Literacy in Sustainable Use of Potable Water

Ana M. Barreiros (), Anabela Durão, Ana Galvão, Cristina Matos, Dina Mateus, Ivo Araújo, Luís Neves and Sandra Mourato
Additional contact information
Ana M. Barreiros: UniRE—Unit for Innovation and Research in Engineering, ISEL—Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, 1959-007 Lisboa, Portugal
Anabela Durão: Department of Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of Beja, Rua Pedro Soares, 7800-295 Beja, Portugal
Ana Galvão: CERIS—Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Cristina Matos: ECT—Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal
Dina Mateus: Techn&Art—Centre for Technology, Restoration and Art Enhancement, Instituto Politécnico de Tomar, Estrada da Serra, 2300-313 Tomar, Portugal
Ivo Araújo: proMetheus—Unidade de Investigação em Materiais, Energia e Ambiente para a Sustentabilidade, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Rua da Escola Industrial e Comercial de Nun’Alvares, 4900-347 Viana do Castelo, Portugal
Luís Neves: Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, P.O. Box 4163, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal
Sandra Mourato: Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, P.O. Box 4163, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 12, 1-21

Abstract: Higher education institutions (HEIs) play a key role in fostering sustainability, since students will be future active society members. By providing them with the knowledge, skills, and mindset needed to address environmental challenges, they can contribute to increasing sustainability in a long-term approach. With the effects of climate change strongly affecting water availability across the planet, it is increasingly relevant to understand whether higher education students are aware of this situation, in order to develop adequate measures to promote sustainable behaviors regarding water use. This study aimed to assess students’ perceptions regarding water efficiency through a questionnaire submitted in seven HEIs in Portugal. Students acknowledged the importance of water, with older students, women and science students demonstrating a greater awareness. Despite this, 27% of students do not know what the average water consumption in Portugal is, and only 18% accurately reported the consumption range in Portugal. There is also a lack of knowledge (>50% students) regarding whether common water efficiency measures are applied in their HEI. The main information sources identified by the students were “social communication” and “internet/social media”, revealing that water efficiency knowledge transfer in high education can be improved.

Keywords: education institutions; SDGs; sustainability; water efficiency; water use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/12/5217/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/12/5217/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:12:p:5217-:d:1418040

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().