Abstract
We examine the possible link between residential water consumption and quality of the water, both raw water and tap water. We first survey the existing literature on residential water use and its relation to water quality. An empirical analysis using French data is then provided. Our findings suggest that the quality of water at the tap, in particular its bacteriological quality, is a strong predictor of residential water consumption.
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Notes
- 1.
As Shaw (2005, p. 67) pointed out: “an excellent current example of an uncertain effect is from exposure to methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), which is a fuel additive used to oxygenate fuels to decrease air pollution, but which is being found in groundwater supplies … there is still debate about whether MTBE causes cancer or not”.
- 2.
For instance, in January 2013 the French non-governmental association ‘France Liberté’ and the consumer association ‘60 millions de consommateurs’ published a map of municipalities allowed to deliver tap water which does not comply with water quality standards.
- 3.
In France, drinking water represents about 1 % of households’ tap water consumption. This figure rises to 7 % if we include water used for preparing food.
- 4.
For instance, according to the Sofres/CIEAU survey in 2009, 62 % of the French population believe that low environmental water quality will result in low tap water quality.
- 5.
Households can also boil water, at some cost in terms of energy and time (Shaw 2005). As Jalan et al. (2009) pointed out, households can adopt different measures to avoid bad water quality impacts, ranging from inexpensive or low-grade technologies (straining with a cloth, using chlorine, and safe storage vessels) to relatively sophisticated and expensive technologies (e.g., electrically powered filters that use ultraviolet to remove pathogens). In developing countries, there is a broad variety of studies of such defensive techniques (among others, Aini et al. 2007; Bukenya 2008; Jalan et al. 2009).
- 6.
- 7.
France is divided into 101 administrative units called ‘départements’.
- 8.
About 5,000 French local communities have been surveyed about the technical, financial, and organisational characteristics of their water and sanitation services. All municipalities with a population greater than 10,000 inhabitants have been surveyed, while the smaller municipalities have been randomly selected.
- 9.
General coliforms indicate that the water has come in contact with plant or animal life. Fecal coliforms, particularly E. coli, indicate that there are mammal or bird feces in the water. Enterococcus bacteria also indicate that there are feces from warm-blooded animals in the water. Enterococcus is a type of fecal streptococci.
- 10.
Pollution of water is highly discussed in French newspapers. The title of an article published on 20 March 2012 in Le Monde (a major national French newspaper) was “Agriculture is responsible for water pollution in France in two cases out of three”. One may expect that a French household reacts to this type of information, even if the objective tap water quality is not directly affected by pollution.
- 11.
- 12.
Another explanation could be a price effect. Hence, it is well known that the tap water price tends to be lower in municipalities supplied by groundwater (compared to surface water).
- 13.
We have estimated the same model without including the tap bacteriological contamination variable in the two first equations, and we find some significant changes in the coefficient estimates. For example, variable BadSurfNitrates becomes significant in the first equation, with a negative sign.
- 14.
Garcia-Valiñas et al. (2009), based on a sample of medium to large Spanish municipalities, found a positive impact of population density on residential water bills.
- 15.
One may be concerned by a potential collinearity problem between the type of treatment and raw water quality. Hence, one may suspect the water quality variables (raw water quality and quality at the tap) to be collinear with the variables describing the type of water treatment. Although we expect more sophisticated treatments to be used when raw water is of lower quality, our data do not show such a pattern. No significant relationship was found between raw water quality and type of treatment. In fact, the type of treatment is highly driven by administrative constraints which depend on UDI size.
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Reynaud, A., Garcia-Valiñas, M.A. (2015). Does Residential Water Use Depend on Water Quality? Some Answers from a French Case Study. In: Grafton, Q., Daniell, K., Nauges, C., Rinaudo, JD., Chan, N. (eds) Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9801-3_16
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