Holistic approach to water conservation behavior in urban environment: a systematic literature review

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that enhancing the water conservation behavior of the urban population would provide an alternative solution by demand curtailment and behavior change, rather than traditional methods of increasing water supply. A structured, evidence-based approach to identify relevant research studies has been instrumental in this research. The paper provides a systematic review of 35 papers, narrowed down from 3089 papers, which have converged towards an integrated approach to water conservation behavior. The significant factors of water conservation behavior were classified under four broad themes: psychological, situational, demographic, and contextual. The review showed that the situational and contextual variables were understudied among these factors. Further, this study identifies research gaps in the models of water conservation behavior and highlights the need for future work. The issue of sustainability of water through a cogent argument based upon behavioral studies in water conservation has been carried out.

Article highlights

• Evidence-based systematic review for a comprehensive assessment of current literatures of water conservation behavior.

• Identification of four variable cluster themes: psychological, demographic, situational, and contextual variables.

• Provides insight into major theories used to predict water conservation behavior.

• Represents a knowledge map of theories and models to guide future researchers.

• Situational and contextual variables are understudied, with significant evaluation and population gap existing between developed and developing nations.

• Theoretical void exists in specific behavior theories, such as Identity Theory, in predicting water conservation behavior.

• Authors elaborated holistic model to predict water conservation behavior along with mediating effects of situational and contextual variables.

• Addressing issues of sustainability through cogent arguments in behavioral studies for water conservation.

KEYWORDS:

• Water conservation behavior
• integrated holistic models
• sustainable urban water management
• psychological-contextual-situational variables
• systematic critical review
• policy considerations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.