Water Use Behavior in a Multicultural Urban Area in Sweden

Atefeh Dadvar, Krushna Mahapatra and Jörgen Forss
Additional contact information
Atefeh Dadvar: Department of Built Environment and Energy Technology, Linnaeus University, 35195 Växjö, Sweden
Krushna Mahapatra: Department of Built Environment and Energy Technology, Linnaeus University, 35195 Växjö, Sweden
Jörgen Forss: Department of Built Environment and Energy Technology, Linnaeus University, 35195 Växjö, Sweden

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: The increasing world population and climate change are major concerns for the supply of water needs. Understanding user behavior facilitates the development of effective strategies of domestic water management. This research applied a questionnaire survey and data analysis methods to analyze the water consumption behavior of tenants in a multicultural urban area, dominated by immigrants of different ethnic origins, in the city of Växjö in Sweden. Results showed that the majority of the studied participants perceived themselves to be environmentally friendly. They reported to be engaged in water conservation activities quite often, but analysis showed that they did not have accurate perceptions of their water consumption. Positive attitudes towards water conservation and self-reported water conservation activities significantly but negatively influenced respondents’ actual water consumption, i.e., water consumption was higher. Subjective norms did not have a significant influence. The results also revealed that individual measurement and debit positively influenced, i.e., reduced, actual water consumption. Therefore, water management systems should include an individual measurement and debit system combined with a visualization system to enable tenants to monitor the quantity and cost of their water consumption.

Keywords: behavior-influencing factor; water consumption; pathway analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8603/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/15/8603/ (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:13:y:2021:i:15:p:8603-:d:606797

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 ().