Understanding and affecting school water behaviour using technological interventions

Abstract

This paper studies and reports the water usage behaviour of a primary school in Stellenbosch in the period leading up to the 2018 drought. The aims of the study was to characterise water consumption patterns for a school, and to quantify the effects of the technology-driven interventions on behavioural change. Three interventions were implemented using smart meter data: posters, playing cards, and daily presentations. The school’s water usage pattern was found to be predictive and regular, except for daily losses, which were extrapolated from measured nightly flow. The water usage distribution was Gaussian with the mean being centred around break time. The interventions were able to reduce water consumption of the school by 44% when compared to the use of a school in the same town where the interventions were not implemented.