IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/sajeco/v74y2006i3p593-609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Water Demand And The Urban Poor: A Study Of The Factors Influencing Water Consumption Among Households In Cape Town, South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Ada Jansen
  • Carl‐erik Schulz

Abstract

Water demand management is a key focus area for most water managers and even more so in developing countries since improved access to water is important to the poor. Different policies have been introduced to ensure a water management system th at cares for the poor, among them the Increasing Block Tariff (IBT) structure. Studies demonstrate that it is very important to know the shape of the demand curve when deciding on the IBT structure. This paper adds to the understanding of the factors that influence water consumption. The focus is on how water demand patterns vary with the level of income among urban dwellers. The results support the hypothesis that pricing is an ineffective measure to manage water consumption among the poor, while it is relatively more effective for the richest group. Therefore, redistribution using water pricing policy will hardly work.

Suggested Citation

  • Ada Jansen & Carl‐erik Schulz, 2006. "Water Demand And The Urban Poor: A Study Of The Factors Influencing Water Consumption Among Households In Cape Town, South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 74(3), pages 593-609, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:74:y:2006:i:3:p:593-609
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1813-6982.2006.00084.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2006.00084.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2006.00084.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Piet Rietveld & Jan Rouwendal & Bert Zwart, 1997. "Estimating Water Demand in Urban Indonesia: A Maximum Likelihood Approach to block Rate Pricing Data," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-072/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dinusha Dharmaratna & Edwyna Harris, 2012. "Estimating Residential Water Demand Using the Stone-Geary Functional Form: The Case of Sri Lanka," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2283-2299, June.
    2. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-484 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Kloos, Julia & Tsegai, Daniel W., 2009. "Preferences for domestic water services in the Middle Olifants sub-basin of South Africa," Discussion Papers 49970, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    4. Thopil, George Alex & Pouris, Anastassios, 2016. "A 20 year forecast of water usage in electricity generation for South Africa amidst water scarce conditions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1106-1121.
    5. Gill, Tania & Punt, Cecilia, 2010. "The Potential Impact of Increased Irrigation Water Tariffs in South Africa," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 96425, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    6. Elisa Savelli & Maurizio Mazzoleni & Giuliano Baldassarre & Hannah Cloke & Maria Rusca, 2023. "Urban water crises driven by elites’ unsustainable consumption," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(8), pages 929-940, August.
    7. Henrique Monteiro, 2010. "Residential Water Demand in Portugal: checking for efficiency-based justifications for increasing block tariffs," Working Papers Series 1 ercwp0110, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    8. Yates, Julian S. & Harris, Leila M., 2018. "Hybrid regulatory landscapes: The human right to water, variegated neoliberal water governance, and policy transfer in Cape Town, South Africa, and Accra, Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 75-87.
    9. Rong Cai & Lingsi Kong & Yan Bai & Jialin Liu & Mengting Hu & Xue Bai, 2024. "Hierarchy Analysis of Water Demand Among Hotel Consumers for Water Appliances," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(21), pages 1-13, October.
    10. Murwirapachena, Genius & Dikgang, Johane, 2018. "An empirical examination of reducing status quo bias in heterogeneous populations: evidence from the South African water sector," MPRA Paper 91549, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arbues, Fernando & Garcia-Valinas, Maria Angeles & Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2003. "Estimation of residential water demand: a state-of-the-art review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 81-102, March.
    2. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Vlach, Tomas, 2016. "Publication Bias in Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand," MPRA Paper 75247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Tomas Vlach, 2018. "Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand: The Importance of Publication and Endogeneity Biases," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(2), pages 259-283.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:74:y:2006:i:3:p:593-609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.