The cross-sectional survey preliminary results

The cross-sectional survey launched last year was open to all households in the Republic of Ireland and ran for 7 weeks in September and October 2021. We received a total of 265 responses of which 23 responses were partially completed responses (8.7%); however, data available for non-completed responses did not indicate any difference compared to completed responses.

The survey consisted of 60 questions grouped by general questions on household water use (e.g., water provision, and water and energy metering) and household water use types and areas (bathroom, kitchen, cleaning and laundry, and outdoor water use); and was designed to be disaggregated by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) household demographic and socio-economic census as a segmentation framework: location, household type, household age, housing status, employment status, household income and household occupancy (disaggregated by age).

The responses are found to be generally representative compared with the 2016 census data in terms of location, employment status, housing status, household income, household type, and household age as illustrated in the charts below. We will also be comparing with the most recent census data when available.

Summary findings from the cross-sectional survey

• Less than a third of respondents ‘definitely’ know they have a water meter and a further 8% think they ‘probably’ have one installed.

• Almost 40% of respondents reported not knowing how much water their households currently use, with around half of respondents estimating their household water use to be average, and very few respondents reported ‘much higher’ or ‘much lower’ than the average metered Irish household water use.  

• Just over a fifth of respondents that ‘definitely’ know they have a water meter installed are unaware of how much water their households use, and interestingly, half of the respondents that do not have a water meter reported being aware of how much they use. None of the respondents report their households using far above average Irish household water use and only 3% of respondents report to using above average. 

• Just over half of respondents report not being aware that their energy bills relate to their water use. Of those that are aware, 88% think there is a moderate to little relationship between their energy bills and water use.

• Almost all respondents are aware of how their homes are heated, with less than 2% of respondents reporting to be unaware. 57% of respondents use a mix of fuel types.

• Just over half of respondents estimated their household energy use and bills are related to their household water use, and of those that do, half estimated a moderate relationship between water use and energy use and costs. Only 20% and 2% of respondents respectively estimated the strong relationship between water and energy use and costs.

What does this mean?

The water industry is very energy intensive and up to 3% of the world’s energy use is used to produce and supply water, and to process and dispose of wastewater. In the UK for example, the water sector is the 4th most energy intensive sector, accounting for around 3 – 4% of total electricity use and 1% of emissions.

The water industry has been working to reduce its energy use through things like leakage reduction and using renewable and low-carbon energy and sees itself as a credible pathway to the energy transition necessary for reducing emissions and achieving net zero carbon.

However, energy use of the water industry only represents around just over 10% energy use, with the rest attributed to water use, and water companies can only do so much once water gets delivered to customers. A lot of the energy use associated with water, therefore water-related energy use, is on the demand-side, and because we all use water, we all have a small role to play to help reduce the energy use of the water sector, reduce emissions from our water use, and reduce costs of water supply, use, and disposal because we don’t only pay for the water we use.

This citizen science project is helping us better understand the gap between perception and actual water use to develop best practice guidance on how households can take climate action through water efficiency in everyday activities.