Exploiting high-resolution data to investigate the characteristics of water consumption at the end-use level

Abstract

In the water industry, an accurate estimation of end-use water consumption is helpful for the implementation of efficient water systems and water-saving technologies. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of water consumption at nine households north of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), subjected to water consumption monitoring at high temporal resolution (i.e. 1 s). Overall, 36,297 water-use events monitored over about 447 days were automatically segmented into 44,115 individual events by means of a new rule-based filtering algorithm, and then labelled by expert analysts. A multi-stage analysis was then conducted in order to evaluate daily per capita end-use water consumption, daily end-use profiles, average end-use parameter average, and their statistical distributions. The results achieved provide insight into the features of end-use consumption, confirming that the largest components are typically related to showers/bathtubs, toilets, and washing machines, whereas different end-use parameter distributions can emerge.