Do droughts have long-term effects on water consumption? Evidence from the urban area of Barcelona

Abstract

This article examines the long-term effects of droughts on water consumption using data of municipalities of the urban area of Barcelona. Two important characteristics of the sample of municipalities are the relatively low water consumption in the pre-drought period and the fact that indoor uses are clearly predominant. Controlling for prices, income and various socio-demographic factors, we find a reduction in water consumption not only during the drought episode but also in subsequent periods. These permanent reductions in water use may be explained by household behavioural changes, technological changes or structural water policy changes.

Keywords:

• water consumption
• droughts
• water-saving policies
• high-density cities
• panel data

JEL Classification:

• C23
• D12
• Q25

Notes

¹ See Martin-Ortega and Markandya (2009) for a detailed chronology of the events and the measures applied during the drought episode suffered by the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona in 2007–2008.

² Our sample of municipalities includes the city of Barcelona, which is much larger than the other municipalities. We ran regressions in which the city of Barcelona was excluded, but the results were qualitatively identical to those obtained in regressions in which it was included. Note that previous studies of water demand do not consider population as an explanatory variable.

³ We also ran regressions with a variable for the percentage of young people in the population, but none was found to be statistically significant.

⁴ Some studies conducted in the United States (including Gaudin et al., 2001; Balling et al., 2008) have considered the percentage of Hispanics; however, this is clearly not relevant in our context.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Government [project ECO2012-38004], by the Regional Government of Catalonia [project SGR2014-325] and by the European Commission [EFFINET grant FP7-ICT-2012-318556].