LIU Jia-hong 1, 2, WANG Jian-hua 1, 2, LI Hai-hong 1, 2, LI Yue 3 (1. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China; 2. Research Center for Water Resources and Hydro-ecological Engineering, Ministry of Water Resources, Beijing 100044, China; 3. State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China)

Abstract: The urban domestic water consumption has grown by 5% a year on average in China since 2000, which is the fastest growth compared with other water demands. The domestic water demand will continually increase with the development of economy, urbanization and the improvement of living standards. To curb the excessive growth of water demand for human beings, it is of importance to control the water demands in households. Implementation of the price ladder system based on the water use quota is a main measure to promote the water saving in household. The key issue is how to calculate the rational domestic water demand for cities with different economic development level. This paper describes the development of a mathematic model for calculating the rational domestic water demand. The model considers climate factors, economic development factors, and water-saving awareness. Four main parameters of the model were calibrated by grouping optimization approach based on datasets from 12 cities located in the north and the south of China. The basic data for calibration includes gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, daily temperature, quota of domestic water demand, etc. The model has been verified in 31 main cities, which are distributed throughout the main climatic zones of China. The results show that this model can reflect the differences of domestic water demands under different climate conditions and different stages of economic development. It also reveals the difference of water-saving awareness in different cities. The developed model can be used as a computing tool to determine the rational domestic water demand in cities.

Key words: water resources, domestic water, water-saving, water use quota, model calibration

Published in: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, Vol. 44, No. 10, 2013