CAST BRIEFING 25 - April 2024 - Reducing domestic water use: learning from everyday routines: A briefing for policy makers and innovators

Based at the University of Bath, our additional core partners are Cardiff University, the University of East Anglia, the University of York, the University of Manchester and the charity Climate Outreach. [...] This briefing note explores how insights from everyday life – particularly from research that investigates the diversity and complexity of people’s ordinary patterns of water use – can support impactful, systemic changes to reduce water demand and its associated energy use. [...] The experiences of people who have lived with different types of water infrastructures (e.g., water tanks, wells, rainwater harvesting), policy (e.g., time-limited access) and climatic impacts (e.g., high temperatures, interruptions to water supply or shortages) can help us learn about the social dimensions of water demand in changing contexts. [...] Reducing domestic water use: learning from everyday routines: A briefing for policy makers and innovators | April 2024 3 Findings Example 1: Pre-migration and post-migration patterns of water use Pre- and post-migration patterns of water use, particularly when moving from low to high- resource consumption countries is a way of observing how water consumption needs are met across changing circumsta. [...] We research and develop the social transformations needed to produce a low-carbon and sustainable society; at the core of our work is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: How can we as a society live differently – and better – in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions? Based at the University of Bath, our additional core partners are Cardif.