Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on household water consumption patterns in England

The COVID-19 lockdown has instigated significant changes in household behaviours across a variety of categories including water consumption, which in the south and east regions of England is at an all-time high. We analysed water consumption data from 11,528 households over 20 weeks from January 2020, revealing clusters of households with distinctive temporal patterns. We present a data-driven household water consumer segmentation characterising households' unique consumption patterns and we demonstrate how the understanding of the impact of these patterns of behaviour on network demand during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown can improve the accuracy of demand forecasting. Our results highlight those groupings with the highest and lowest impact on water demand across the network, revealing a significant quantifiable change in water consumption patterns during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The implications of the study to urban water demand forecasting strategies are discussed, along with proposed future research directions.

Automated summary

The COVID-19 lockdown has led to significant changes in household behaviors in terms of water consumption, especially in the south and east regions of England where water consumption reached an all-time high. By analyzing data from over 11,000 households, researchers were able to identify unique consumption patterns and their impact on network demand during the lockdown period. The study highlights the need for improved forecasting strategies and further research into urban water demand.