Understanding household attitudes to water conservation in Saudi Arabia: towards sustainable communities

ABSTRACT

In regions with limited freshwater resources, water conservation is crucial for sustainable resource management. This study investigates the links between household attitudes, information sources and water conservation policies in Saudi Arabia. The results reveal that over half the participants agree that water must be conserved, but three-quarters disagree they are obliged to conserve water. Water conservation behaviours were significantly associated with socio-economic characteristics. The study highlights the importance of human attitudes in developing effective water conservation strategies and complementing top-down public awareness approaches with bottom-up programmes using school curricula. This study can inform policymakers in designing effective water conservation policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Attitudes and behaviour
• public awareness
• sustainable communities
• household water conservation
• water resource management
• Saudi Arabia

Author contributions

Abdulaziz I. Almulhim: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing original draft, writing – review and editing, visualization; Ismaila Rimi Abubakar: investigation, formal analysis, validation, writing – review and editing.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support from the Deanship of Scientific Research at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

References