Water use efficiency of urban households in the Mediterranean region of Turkey

• Published in: Desalination and water treatment 2017-05, Vol.76, p.364-368
• Main Authors: Gul, M., Akpinar, M.G., Ceylan, R.F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Household; Tap water; Turkey; Water-saving
• ISSN: 1944-3986
• DOI: 10.5004/dwt.2017.20445

Water is vital to the sustainability of life and social and economic development. Inability to substitute water scarcity and speculations that the world shall face several water crises in the long run, raises consciousness towards wise water use. Thus, countries have a focus on water supply and demand management. While average daily per capita water use differs between countries, water consumption habits bear plenty of similarities. This study aims at demonstrating water consumption and saving attitudes of households in urban settings through a sample of 965 households from western Mediterranean region of Turkey. The simple descriptive statistics obtained from Adana, Antalya and Hatay provinces showed that 25.3% of households maintain practices in order to reuse and save water. It was found that 66.7 % of waste water was used at toilet, 17.3% in plant watering and 16% in cleaning balconies or similar parts of the house. The tap water was mainly used for cooking, laundry, personal care as well as for garden irrigation (66.2%) and car washing (57.7%). The data obtained demonstrates that development of marketing activities and policies to improve conscious tap water use in households are rather important.