DETERMINING INDICATORS OF URBAN HOUSEHOLD WATER CONSUMPTION THROUGH MULTIVARIATE STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES

Water has a decisive influence on populations’ life quality – specifically in areas like urban supply, drainage, and effluents treatment – due to its sound impact over public health. Water rational use constitutes the greatest challenge faced by water demand management, mainly with regard to urban household water consumption. This makes it important to develop researches to assist water managers and public policy-makers in planning and formulating water demand measures which may allow urban water rational use to be met. This work utilized the multivariate techniques Factor Analysis and Multiple Linear Regression Analysis – in order to determine the participation level of socioeconomic and climatic variables in monthly urban household consumption changes – applying them to two districts of Campina Grande city (State of Paraíba, Brazil). The districts were chosen based on socioeconomic criterion (income level) so as to evaluate their water consumer’s behavior. A 9-year monthly data series (from year 2000 up to 2008) was utilized, comprising family income, water tariff, and quantity of household connections (economies) – as socioeconomic variables – and average temperature and precipitation, as climatic variables. For both the selected districts of Campina Grande city, the obtained results point out the variables “water tariff” and “family income” as indicators of these district’s household consumption