Water, water everywhere!

Last semester I took a Water Resource Economics class and did a final project that looked at the role of water meters in reducing water use. My inspiration for this project was hearing that the Republic of Ireland is just now starting to install water meters for the purpose of charging people based on their volumetric consumption. Now, there are many wealthy countries that only charge flat fees for water, that is, not based on volume used, but Ireland is one of the few places that did not charge for water, period. Water in Ireland has been free, a service provided to its citizens, but relatedly, Ireland also has one of the highest water use rates in Europe.

So I decided to look at what happens when consumers pay for the amount of water they actually use. I found 24 case studies wherein water use before and after water meter installation was reported, from countries on 5 continents, and I'd like to share some of the maps that I made to correspond with that data. (If you're interested in particular cases, I'd be glad to share my paper and/or sources.)

First are the maps showing daily per capita use and daily household use, depending on what the paper provided measurements for.

And the reductions in water use after meters were installed:

 

Interestingly, the greatest reductions occurred in Yerevan, Armenia, though there are many reasons behind the different consumption and reduction rates. Other noteworthy sites included Hamburg, Germany; several sites in Colombia; British Columbia; California; and Isle of Wight, UK.