Understanding the future of a Large Technical System (LTS) through a sociotechnical analysis is a complex notion. The authors will investigate the phenomenon by studying residential water consumption in Sweden. Although Sweden has great access to raw water, compared to many other countries, it does not justify the fact that consumption patterns have to be unsustainable. To perceive the future, one will need to have knowledge of history. Therefore, this thesis has identified 11 drivers that will affect future residential water consumption. From these 11 drivers, the authors have posed four future scenarios for residential water consumption. The top 3 identified drivers are connected to behaviour and awareness. Thus, implying individuals' responsibility and accountability will be of greater significance for the sustainable development of residential water consumption. For this research, the authors have adopted a framework based on the application of LTS, Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), Scenario building, PESTLE, and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA). The authors have conducted a qualitative study, gathering data through a literature study and semi-structured interviews. The 18 interviewees covered a broad spectrum of knowledge, experiences, and general interest in water. By understanding the dynamics of the system and drivers, the authors will be able to present the gathered knowledge to stakeholders for possible strategic decisions. / Att förstå framtiden för ett stort tekniskt system (LTS) genom en socioteknisk analys innebär stor komplexitet. Detta kommer att undersökas genom att studera hushållens vattenförbrukning i Sverige. Även om Sverige har stor tillgång till råvatten, jämfört med många andra länder, berättigar det inte förekommandet av ohållbara konsumtionsmönster. För att öka förståelsen av framtiden måste en ha kunskap om historien. Därför har denna avhandling identifierat 11 drivkrafter som kommer att påverka den framtida hushållens vattenförbrukning. Från dessa 11 drivkrafter har författarna formulerat fyra framtida scenarier för hushållens vattenförbrukning. De tre högst rankade identifierade drivkrafterna är kopplade till beteende och medvetenhet. Detta antyder på att individens enskilda ansvar och skyldigheter är av större betydelse för en hållbar utveckling av hushållens vattenförbrukning. För denna forskning har författarna använt sig av ett teoretiskt ramverk som bygger på tillämpningen av LTS, Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), Scenario building, PESTLE and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA). Författarna har genomfört en kvalitativ studie, där insamling av data härstammar från den genomförda litteraturstudien och 18 semi-strukturerade intervjuer. De 18 intervjukandidaterna täckte ett brett spektrum av kunskap, erfarenhet och intresse av vatten. Genom att skapa ett samband och förstå dynamiken i systemet och drivkrafterna, kommer författarna att kunna presentera den samlade kunskapen till intressenter för eventuella strategiska beslut.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, 1981 / Bibliography: leaves 264-269. / by John Jay Shaw. / Ph. D. / Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering

Literature survey shows that with, a few exceptions, the consumer behaviour of domestic water consumers has not been a common area of research. This explains the scarcity of information in this specific field. This scarcity was noted in the region and very much so in the context of Mauritius. And yet, such information is very much relevant for the management of the water sector, for the improvement of the service, for policy makers, for personal and social development and for achieving consumer satisfaction. This research brings about information that would contribute in its own way to these areas. The object of this thesis is to study the consumer behaviour in respect of domestic water consumers in Mauritius, to develop new theories and to build a consumer behaviour model. The thesis, at its outset, gives the background of the research. It contains the description of the water supply situation in Mauritius, its production, its distribution and its management. The brief on the people of Mauritius helps to put in the right context the pluricultural nature of the Mauritian society which is important for the understanding of the consumer behaviour of Mauritians. The literature survey, inter-alia, gives the historical development of consumer behaviour, its relevance to marketing, and its study as a discipline in its own right. The very scarcity of theories and models of consumer behaviour of domestic water consumers cannot be overlooked. The literature survey, therefore, covers some of the theories and models specifically on commodities. These models along with the literature review serve as theoretical foundation for the present research The models of consumer behaviour which have been literature reviewed have further enabled to construct an integrated model of consumer behaviour which serves as a framework for the discussion and analysis of the new model which is developed during the course of this research. The research is one mainly of general interest and can be classified as an exploratory research with a substantial contribution of descriptive research. The research has necessitated the collection of primary data. For this purpose, the objective approach was adopted and a consumer survey was carried out with the use of a direct structured questionnaire. The survey has been supplemented by discussions of focus groups. The analysis of the consumer survey is followed by the testing of the hypotheses, the development of theories and discussions on results obtained. The building of a new model of consumer behaviour based on the findings of the research is then undertaken and discussed. The thesis covers a wide spectrum from the need of a domestic water connection, consumption of domestic water, post-consumption behaviour to the illegal use of water in Mauritius. The thesis winds up with conclusions and recommendations. The specific topic of this thesis is a rare one. This research is but a step in the furtherance of knowledge. It stands as an original regional contribution to the science of management and to its development. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / DBL

The bottled water industry in Mexico represents a new method of providing drinking water to a society without ties to a conventional central piped domestic water supply system. Mexico, the world's leader in bottled water per capita consumption, has struggled to provide reliable, safe drinking water for its citizens. This study examines the context in which the bottled water industry rose to become the primary source of drinking water for a majority of Mexicans. The study shows how the combination of factors allowed the industry's rapid rise from a niche market of elite and 'healing' waters to its present size. The cholera epidemic of the 1990s, the 1985 earthquake, and the financial crisis that left Mexico unable to invest in water infrastructure forced consumers to seek alternative water sources. Political factors and the liberalizing reforms of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s facilitated market solutions and private-public-partnerships to meet the needs of the Mexican citizens. The world's largest food and beverage distributors bought into the market and found that the public was willing to pay cash for water bottles where the public water sector had failed to deliver potable water. Despite the fact that bottled water is more expensive per unit of water than a centralized delivery system, consumers are willing to pay a high price for clean water. It is an open question whether consumers return to tap water even after improvements have been made, once the bottled water industry has been so established. / text

This thesis investigates the influence that cultural differences have in the designing of products and services that encourage sustainable lifestyles. This was researched through a case study of dishwashing practices in Mexico and the UK, and the development of a methodological framework for supporting designers working in cross-cultural contexts. Designers can shift user behaviour to be more responsible, and by doing this, reduce a product s impact on the use phase of its lifecycle. Nevertheless, designing products that successfully drive behaviour towards a more sustainable path can only be accomplished if they are conceived to fit the user and the specific context of interaction. In order to do so, designers must truly understand the users, and take into account the complex web of factors that lay behind individual behaviour. A comprehensive review of the literature established an understanding of human behaviour and the emergence and evolution of practices and routines. This brought to light the diverse behavioural patterns in different contexts; and was further investigated with a scoping study in two different locations (Mexico and the UK), exploring general water consuming practices in the home, specifically manual dishwashing practices. The preliminary findings shaped a study that aimed to deepen the understanding of these practices in the selected sites, involving the use of Cultural Probes and videoing people in their common kitchen environment. A robust and clear image of washing-up practices emerged with rich and detailed data presented in different media, ideal to be implemented in a design process. To this end, a series of multicultural Personas were created as the direct outcome of the Cultural Probes and the scoping study, giving way to the design studies phase of the project, carried out with industrial design students in Mexico and the UK. A design brief for sustainable washing up practices was delivered. Design experiments were used to provide interesting evidence of the influence in the design process of the designers understanding of the target user. The findings indicate that designers benefit from exploration and creativity tools tailored directly from the user-research findings in the early design process. This increases the level of empathy towards the user, particularly making it easier to design for users with different needs and contexts than the designers themselves. It also helps designers to better apply design for sustainable behaviour framework to their concept designs.

M. Tech., (Faculty of Applied and Computer Science), Vaal University of Technology / There is huge concern in the mining and industries to manage wastewater prior to discharge into the environment. It is generally cheaper and cost reducing for industries to treat its own wastewater before discharging to the local authority sewer. Dense Media Separation (DMS) Powders Company produces milled and atoms ferro-silicon by pyro-metallurgical process. DMS Powders uses municipal water for all processes taking place in the plants. The water used during the processes of milled and atom ferrosilicon powder is discharged into the environment without being treated. By treating this process wastewater before discharging will result in reducing the water consumption by recycling and the penalty costs for polluting the environment. The primary objective of this study is to find suitable method for treatment of DMS Powders’ process water using selected membrane processes. Membrane processes are better choice compared to traditional physical/chemical treatment processes, due to their advantages of approving water quality, no phase change, no chemical addition and simple operation. Two commercial membranes namely; NF-, and SW30HR are used in the treatment of DMS Powders process water. These membranes were purchased from (Dow/Filmtec) Manufacturing Company (Pty) situated in South Africa. Membranes were characterised by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) and Fourie Transform Infrared (FTIR) instruments. For synthetic water three membranes (NF- , NF90, and SW30HR) are investigated for the study. The fluxibility indicated that NF- membrane has higher flux compared to NF90 and SW30HR membranes. All the three membranes were very good in terms of rejection on single salts. Fouling was studied on DMS Powders process water. Concentration polarization was formed on NF- and SW30HR membranes investigations on selected membranes conclude that NF- membrane will be the suitable membrane for treatment of DMS Powders process water because of its high fluxibility and rejection. Discharged effluent of DMS Powders could comply with the legislature and environmental pollution could be minimised. The study revealed that fouling does occur during treatment of process water. SW30HR showed that M9 Plant had more fouling for M9 samples than other Plants (M8A and M8B). It was because of higher concentrations in suspended solids.or M8A, M8B and M9 process water.

This dissertation sets its goal in application of the water footprint indicator, which is a practical and multi-layered indicator of water sources consumption. Of human activities, agriculture presents the most significant demands on water sources consumption. Therefore I have turned my focus to the widely-discussed issue of biofuels production, because the input materials for production of this kind of energy are agricultural crops (in the Czech republic those are: oilseed rape, sugar beet, Indian corn and winter wheat). The calculated results of water footprints of the selected industrial crops (m3 /t) and of water footprints of the heating value units of that crops (m3 /GJ) offer us a concrete notion of energy requirements of water of that chosen industrial crops in the conditions of the Czech republic. Keywords: water footprint indicator, biofuels, oilseed rape, water consumption, biodiesel, bioethanol, evapotranspiration.

Este trabalho teve como objetivos estimar o consumo hídrico da cultura da estévia utilizando dois microlisímetros de lençol freático de nível constante, bem como determinar as funções de resposta de lâminas de irrigação no rendimento de folhas da cultura. A pesquisa foi realizada na área experimental do Departamento de Agronomia e Gestão do Agroecossistema da Universidade de Pisa, em San Piero a Grado Pisa/Itália. A evapotranspiração de referência foi determinada pelo método Penman-Monteith-FAO. Os dados de evapotranpiração foram coletados diariamente durante o período de junho a outubro de 2000. O lençol freático dos dois microlisímetros foi mantido a 35 cm da superfície do solo. As lâminas de irrigação aplicadas foram 64%, 80%, 100%, 117% da evapotranspiração medida pelos microlisímetros e um tratamento testemunha sem irrigação, sendo 4 repetições em cada tratamento. O potencial de água no solo nos tratamentos foi monitorado com tensiômetros istalados nas profundidades de 10 cm, 20 cm, 30 cm e 40 cm de profundidade. A evapotranspiração da cultura durante todo ciclo (80dias) foi de 464 mm. Os valores médios de evapotranspiração para a fase de maoir consumo, ou seja, fase final, foram de 5,44 mm.dia-1. Os valores de coeficientes de cultura foram de 1,45 para a fase inicial, 1,14 para a intermediária e 1,16 para a fase final do desenvolvimento da cultura. O uso das maiores lâminas de irrigação, 117% ETE (538 mm ) e 100% ETE (464 mm) promoveram o maior rendimento de folhas, com 5130 Kg.ha-1 e 4931 Kg.ha-1, respectivamente. Esses valores foram 113% e 105% superiores ao tratamento sem irrigação. O rendimento da cultura decresceu conforme aumentou a tensão de água no solo. O uso das diferentes lâminas de irrigação não afetou o teor de esteviosídeo nas folhas, com um valor mádio de 6,49%. O intervalo de irrigação de 3 dias não afetou o rendimento quando foi aplicado a maior lâmina de irrigação (117%). / The aim of this work was to estimate the water consumption of stevia using two constant watertable microlysimeters and determine the irrigation levels response in the yield. The research was conducted at the Department of Agronomy and Agroecosystem Gestion experimental area of the Pisa University, in San Piero a Grado-Pisa/Itália. The reference evapotranspiration e was determined by the Penman-Monteith-FAO method. The data was daily coleected from June to October 2000. The two microlysimeters watertable had been maintained at 35 cm depth. The irrigation levls were 15%, 64%, 80%, 100% and 117% of evapotranspiration (ETP), measured by capillary ascension microlisymeter. The experimental design was entirely randomize with 4 repetitions and 20 plots. The soil water potential was measured by tensiometers installed at 10 cm, 20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm. The crop evapotranspiration in the total cicle (80 days) was 464 mm. For the most water consumption phase, the crop evapotranspiration average was 5,44 mm.day-1. The crop coefficient values were 1,14 for the next period (from 26 to 50 days), and 1,16 for the latest one (from 51 to 80 days). The greatest yield was obtained by 117% ETE (538 mm) and 100% ETE (464 mm) irrigation levels, with 5130 Kg.ha-1 and 4931 Kg.ha-1, respectively. These values were 113% and 105% higher than the treatment without irrigation. The yield decreased according to increased the soil water tension. The different irrigation levels did not affect the esteviodeo content, with an average of 6,49%. Until 3 days between irrigation under the 117% ETE, the crops yield was not affected significatevily.

Submitted by Jadson Francisco de Jesus SILVA (jadson@uefs.br) on 2018-04-10T23:18:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose Carlos - Disserta??o - Vers?o Final 2017 B.pdf: 1422782 bytes, checksum: 8058051bfe780cb7972b630af8f1e7e0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-10T23:18:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Jose Carlos - Disserta??o - Vers?o Final 2017 B.pdf: 1422782 bytes, checksum: 8058051bfe780cb7972b630af8f1e7e0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-11 / The dairy industry is an example of a system characterized by the association of different production systems: agriculture, livestock, dairy, industrial transformation and product distribution. Dairy products are the food group that includes milk, as well as its processed byproducts, having as main inputs, water and energy. These inputs are essential in the production processes of the dairy industry, as well as the assessment of eco-efficiency through the quantities of water and energy consumed. For this purpose, data from 23 dairy products registered at INEMA from 2006 to 2012 were used, and the average water consumption coefficient of 3.15 LL of processed milk and average effluent generation coefficient of 3.17 LL processed milk. Regarding the energy consumed indicator, the available data were unsatisfactory due to lack of data, which made it impossible to obtain reliable results on consumption. It was concluded that the dairy products licensed in the state of Bahia are less efficient in the use of water and energy inputs in relation to the national industry, as it is in relation to the international industry (benckmarking). It is pointed out that this type of approach is not yet an initiative of the Environmental Agency and that the concept of eco-efficiency is not incorporated in the analyzes of environmental licensing in Brazil. / A industria de latic?nios ? um exemplo de sistema caracterizado pela associa??o de diferentes sistemas de produ??o: agricultura, pecu?ria, explora??o leiteira, transforma??o industrial e distribui??o do produto. Os produtos l?cteos s?o o grupo de alimentos que inclui o leite, assim como os seus derivados processados, tendo como insumos principais, ?gua e energia. Esses insumos s?o essenciais nos processos produtivos da ind?stria de produtos l?cteos, assim como a avalia??o da ecoefici?ncia atraves das quantidades de ?gua e energia consumidas. Para este fim, foram utilizados dados de 23 latic?nios protocolados no INEMA, no per?odo de 2006 a 2012, sendo obtido o coeficiente m?dio de consumo de ?gua de 3,15 L.L de leite processado e coeficiente m?dio de gera??o de efluente de 3,17 L.L leite processado. Quanto ao indicador de energia consumida, os dados disponibilizados foram insatisfat?rios devido ? falta de dados, o que impossibilitou a obten??o de resultados confi?veis sobre o consumo. Concluiu-se que os latic?nios licenciados no estado da Bahia s?o menos eficientes na utiliza??o dos insumos de ?gua e energia em rela??o ? ind?stria nacional, da mesma forma que esta em rela??o ? ind?stria internacional (benckmarking). Indica-se que esse tipo de abordagem ainda n?o ? uma iniciativa do ?rg?o Ambiental e que o conceito de ecoefici?ncia n?o est? incorporado nas an?lises do licenciamento ambiental, no Brasil.

"Numerous higher education (HE) institutions in the United States (US) have created sustainability agendas, including construction of sustainable buildings. More than 200 US HE institutions, have at least one Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building on their campus (Princeton Review 2012). With the growing student population and need to house them, residence hall construction is rising nationwide. A profile of newly constructed building types shows residence halls hold the largest median area (Princeton Review 2012). In an effort to assess if sustainable residence halls are performing sustainably, a series of post occupancy evaluation (POE) indicators were selected. POE indicators were chosen through a review of widely adopted sustainability rating systems, scientific literature and student occupant feedback. The selected indicators address a range of parameters including: water and energy consumption, occupant thermal comfort, occupant consumption behavior and education, noise insulation (indoor and outdoor), and Facilities Management (FM) operational feedback. Furthermore, specific indicators such as building energy management systems (BEMS), building automation control systems (BACS) and artificial intelligence (AI) agents were examined. The proposed POE indicator framework data was collected from various key stakeholders including: designers, HE FM departments, residential life personnel, and student occupants. The dataset includes: actual temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) measurements of a LEED-Gold residence hall, actual water (9 residence halls) and energy consumption (4 residence halls) data, and feedback from designers, HE FM departments and 593 student occupants (LEED and non-LEED residence halls). The proposed POE indicator framework triangulates quantitative and qualitative data, via investigative and diagnostic techniques; creating a comprehensive building performance picture, vis-à-vis technical and non-technical parameters."