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Through the use of a stochastic simulation model this project analyzes both the impacts of the expanding biofuels sector on water demand in selected regions of the United States and variations in the profitability of ethanol production due to location differences. Changes in consumptive water use in the Texas High Plains, Southern Minnesota, and the Central Valley of California, as impacted by current and proposed grain-based ethanol plants were addressed. In addition, this research assesses the potential impacts of technologies to reduce consumptive water use in the production of ethanol in terms of water usage and the economic viability of each ethanol facility. This research quantifies the role of corn ethanol production on water resource availability and identifies the alternative water pricing schemes at which ethanol production is no longer profitable. The results of this research show that the expansion of regional ethanol production and the resulting changes in the regional agricultural landscapes do relatively little to change consumptive water usage in each location. The California Central Valley has the highest potential for increased water usage with annual water usage in 2017 at levels 15% higher than historical estimates, whereas Southern Minnesota and the Texas High Plains are predicted to have increases of less than 5% during the same time period. Although water use by ethanol plants is extremely minor relative to consumptive regional agricultural water usage, technological adaptations by ethanol facilities have the potential to slightly reduce water usage and prove to be economically beneficial adaptations to make. The sensitivity of net present value (NPV) with respect to changes in water price is shown to be extremely inelastic, indicating that ethanol producers have the ability to pay significantly more for their fresh water with little impact on their 10 year economic performance.

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Understanding the evolution of water demand is of paramount importance for countries that want to implement the correct water demand management strategies that aim at increasing water use efficiency. This paper analyses household water demand in the capital city of the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, in order to develop a better understanding of residential water demand in developing country contexts. Using survey data from 526 households in the Mbombela Municipality of Mpumalanga, South Africa, we estimate the price and income elasticities of household water demand, and investigate the factors that drive water demand of households that are located in heterogenous income groups. Households in the study areas have the unique characteristic seen in developing countries of having access to several sources of water, such as tap, ground and rainwater, implying the possibility of substitution. We run different estimation strategies that range from OLS, 2SLS and instrumental variable approaches to identify the factors that influence urban water demand. The findings reflect that price and income elasticities vary across different household groups, with price elasticities ranging from -0.140 to -0.879 and income elasticities ranging from 0.172 to 0.628. Other statistically significant variables which drive household water consumption are household size, education level, use of water saving technologies, and the use of rainwater tanks and systems. A crucial finding in this study was that water saving technologies were revealed to reduce water consumption levels by between 28.3% to 43.4%, and we hence provide specific policy recommendations based upon this finding. Overall, the results from this study can contribute substantially towards the development of appropriate and sustainable water policy making in South Africa.

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Municipal water suppliers are increasingly faced with implementing programs to address temporary water shortages in the United States. Having reliable estimates for the effectiveness of these programs will help in water supply planning. This dissertation estimates the reductions in residential water-use for voluntary and mandatory water-use restrictions used in Virginia during the 2002 drought. These restrictions were evaluated using both a conventional approach (single-dummy variable for each) and non-conventional approach where program intensity was accounted for. Program intensity was measured by information dissemination for voluntary restrictions, and by information dissemination and enforcement efforts for mandatory restrictions. An unbalanced panel with data from 21 municipal water suppliers was used in the analysis. Under the conventional approach, voluntary restrictions had no significant effect on water-use and mandatory restrictions showed a small to moderate effect. However, program intensity was found to have a significant influence on the magnitude of the water-use reductions in the non-conventional approach. These reductions ranged from 0-7% for voluntary restrictions, and from 0-22% for mandatory restrictions. Moreover, these reductions followed a pattern of increasing program effectiveness with higher levels of information and enforcement. This result indicates that water supply planners need to give considerable attention to the manner in which drought management programs are implemented. Price was also found to have an important effect on residential water-use. A moderate price increase of $3 per 1000 gallons would be expected to reduce water-use by almost 15%. Thus combining mandatory restrictions (implemented at high intensity) with a moderate to high price increase could result in water-use savings approaching 40% based on estimates from this analysis. Other important findings included: a) consumers were responding to a mix of pure marginal price and fixed fees/previous block rates, b) apartment accounts were found to be included in most of the localities residential data and had a significant impact on water-use, and c) the income parameter was measuring more than a pure income effect. / Ph. D.

Anthropogenic climate change is arguably the greatest challenge of modern times posing significant risks to natural resources and the environment. Socio-economic change, severe droughts, and environmental concerns focus attention upon sustainability of water supplies and the ability of water utilities to meet competing demands worldwide. The 2012 Climate Change Risk Assessment identified water security as one of the most significant climate threats facing the UK. It is now recognised that household water demand management could offer a low regret adaptation measure (both financially and environmentally) given large uncertainties about future climate and non-climatic pressures. This thesis uses Anglian Water Services (AWS) Golden 100 dataset to explore the climate sensitivity of historic micro-component water-use. This work contributes to a larger integrated assessment of the South-East England water system under the EPSRC Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate Coordination Network (ARCC CN). The Golden 100 is a metered record of 100 households daily water consumption by basin, bath, dishwasher, external, kitchen sink, shower, WC and washing machine use. The archive also includes socio-economic information for each household, dates of the year and daily time series of observed minimum temperature, maximum temperature, sunshine hours, soil moisture deficit, concurrent, and antecedent rainfall amounts. The methodology developed within this research provides a portable approach to error trapping, formatting and mining large, complex water sector datasets, for exploring the relative sensitivities of micro-component metered water-use to weather/non-weather variables. This research recognises both the importance of the choice to use a micro-component and the volume used. As such, logistic and linear generalised regression techniques are employed to explore the relative sensitivity of these two aspects of water-use to climatic and non-climatic variables. The 2009 UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) projections and climate analogues are then used to bound a climate sensitivity analysis of the most weather-sensitive micro-components using temperature and rainfall scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s. This research provides empirical evidence that the most weather sensitive micro-components are external and shower water-use. A key contribution of this research to existing knowledge is the non-linear response of likelihood and volume of external water-use to average air temperatures. There is an abrupt increase in the likelihood of external water-use on days above ~15??C. Climate sensitivity analysis further suggests that by the 2080s, under a hotter/drier climate, average unmetered households could be 8% more likely to use external-water and expend ~9 litres more per day during the summer. For the same parameters, high water users (defined here as the 90th percentile) could consume ~13 litres more external water per day. Importantly, this research has re-affirmed the relative importance of behavioural drivers of water-use as manifested by pronounced day of week and bank holiday signatures in both the likelihood and volume of use statistics. As such, this prompts future studies and water management efforts to consider the impact of behavioural drivers as well as climate. It must be recognised that the small sample size of the Golden 100 combined with the Hawthorn effect, self-selection and sample biases in factors such as socio-economic status, billing method and occupancy rate all limit the sample representativeness of the wider population. As such, any predictions based on the data must be treated as illustrative rather than definitive. Furthermore, the results are probably specific to the demographic and socio-economic groups comprising the sample. Nonetheless, this research sheds new light into water-use within the home thereby adding value to a dataset that was not originally collected with household-level, weather-related research in mind.

This empirical study is aimed to analyze the determinants of residential water demand and performed water use practice at household level in Hawassa. This study will fill the research gap and information on factors affecting household water demand in regions being water scarce and will provide useful information for policy-makers and water utility planners in order to use scarce drinking water resource more efficiently. In this study the proposed potential factors determine household water demand in Hawassa were; Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, the average monthly household expenditure, use of water appliances and household water use patterns for various purposes, and household awareness towards water source conservation. The cross sectional survey was done in 169 rondomly selected households. The collected Data was analyzed using multiple regression models with different functional forms (linear, semi-log) and heteroskedaticity corrected model was also used in each of functional forms to examine the structural relationship between the quantity of water demand and explanatory variables. The gretl statisitcal software package was used. The descriptive statistics analysis was also followed to present results in tables, charts and graphs (mean, median, minimum, maximum, frequency...