Development Aspects Impressum Editors

Capacity-building aspects of awareness-raising and water conservation

This project started off with the objective of raising residents’ awareness of the importance of water and water conservation, but it gained much more than that. Before the project began, residents in the apartment hardly knew each other. It was not uncommon to find hundreds of residents in the apartment who did not know their neighbours’ names, let alone socialize with them. During the course of this project, residents taking part (including their many family members) had to interact with one another and in the process not only learnt about the impor- tance of water conservation but also learnt about each other. Many became close friends and, suffice to say, this project succeeded in enhancing neighbourliness and harmonious living amongst people of different ethnic groups, religions and back- grounds. Residents were also more cooperative with one another after they got to know each other in the project.

Initially, the installation of water-saving fittings for the 100 participating apart- ments in this project began in the month of April 2010. In each apartment, an aver- age of five water-saving fittings were installed. The locations installed with water- saving equipment included the kitchen tap, showers in both bathrooms and taps of both sinks. The types of water fittings installed were the internal water regulator and external water regulator. Economical water fittings rather than high-tech, ex- pensive water equipment were used owing to the large numbers of units involved. These water fittings were given free and installed free of charge by a plumber. The results were also encouraging. Figure 3 shows the total water consumption in 86 participating households (14 households did not have complete data and were excluded) from January 2007 to July 2010. Before the fittings installation in April 2010, water consumption results indicate that household water consumption had steadily increased between 2007 and April 2010. There are probably many reasons for this, such as families getting bigger, lack of awareness, water wasting habits and apartment units being rented out. This gradual increase notwithstanding, after

April 2010, when the installation of water fittings for the participating units began and water awareness and monthly workshops started, the water consumption fig- ures had dropped. The figure for March 2010 was about 3,750 m³. This dropped to 3,490 m³ in May 2010 and further dropped to 3,400 m³ in July 2010. The percent- age water consumption decrease was 6.9 per cent in May and 9.3 per cent in July 2010. This is a significant drop in water consumption given the fact that household water consumption patterns are more or less constant because of the difficulties in changing human behaviour. Since April 2010, the water consumption pattern shows a decreasing trend and this can be attributed to this project.

Figure 3: Total water consumption in 86 participating households from January 2007 to July 2010


4500