IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/waterr/v29y2015i10p3877-3890.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of Land Cover, Vertical Structure, and Socioeconomic Factors on Outdoor Water Use in a Western US City

Author

Listed:
  • Edward Gage
  • David Cooper

Abstract

To help inform urban water conservation and planning, we evaluated spatial patterns and correlative relationships among physical land cover properties, socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, and single-family outdoor residential water use in Aurora, Colorado, a rapidly-growing suburb in the semi-arid Colorado Front Range. Using high resolution land cover maps and lidar-derived vertical structural data, we quantified land cover composition and vertical structural characteristics for detached, single-family residential parcels. These data were combined with socioeconomic and demographic datasets from the 2010 US Census and local government agencies and used in Random Forest analyses of outdoor water use estimated from residential water meter records, with separate analyses conducted using parcels and census block groups as sampling units. Conditional variable importance measures from Random Forest analyses and comparisons of the predictive accuracy of models developed using subsets of explanatory variables were used to assess the relative importance of physical and socioeconomic variables in predicting outdoor water use. Models developed using the subset of land cover variables had the highest predictive accuracy, followed by vertical structural variables, and lastly, socioeconomic/demographic variables. At both the parcel and census block group scale, there was significant spatial clustering in outdoor water use as indicated by various spatial statistical analyses. Our approach demonstrates the value of high resolution land cover and structure data for understanding urban water use patterns and can be used for targeting water conservation efforts. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Edward Gage & David Cooper, 2015. "The Influence of Land Cover, Vertical Structure, and Socioeconomic Factors on Outdoor Water Use in a Western US City," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(10), pages 3877-3890, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:waterr:v:29:y:2015:i:10:p:3877-3890
    DOI: 10.1007/s11269-015-1034-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-015-1034-7
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11269-015-1034-7?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Panagopoulos & George Bathrellos & Hariklia Skilodimou & Faini Martsouka, 2012. "Mapping Urban Water Demands Using Multi-Criteria Analysis and GIS," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(5), pages 1347-1363, March.
    2. Jon Franczyk & Heejun Chang, 2009. "Spatial Analysis of Water Use in Oregon, USA, 1985–2005," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 23(4), pages 755-774, March.
    3. Elizabeth Wentz & Patricia Gober, 2007. "Determinants of Small-Area Water Consumption for the City of Phoenix, Arizona," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(11), pages 1849-1863, November.
    4. Diego Maria André & José Carvalho, 2014. "Spatial Determinants of Urban Residential Water Demand in Fortaleza, Brazil," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(9), pages 2401-2414, July.
    5. Hapfelmeier, A. & Ulm, K., 2013. "A new variable selection approach using Random Forests," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 50-69.
    6. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Noémie Neverre & Marielle Montginoul, 2012. "Simulating the Impact of Pricing Policies on Residential Water Demand: A Southern France Case Study," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(7), pages 2057-2068, May.
    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. Patricia Gober & Ray Quay & Kelli L. Larson, 2016. "Outdoor Water Use as an Adaptation Problem: Insights from North American Cities," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 30(3), pages 899-912, February.
    2. Ying-Jung Chen & Joseph McFadden & Keith Clarke & Dar Roberts, 2015. "Measuring Spatio-temporal Trends in Residential Landscape Irrigation Extent and Rate in Los Angeles, California Using SPOT-5 Satellite Imagery," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(15), pages 5749-5763, December.
    3. Michael O'Donnell & Robert P. Berrens, 2018. "Understanding Falling Municipal Water Demand in a Small City Dependent on the Declining Ogallala Aquifer: Case Study of Clovis, New Mexico," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-40, October.
    4. Iman Fatehi & Bahman Amiri & Afshin Alizadeh & Jan Adamowski, 2015. "Modeling the Relationship between Catchment Attributes and In-stream Water Quality," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(14), pages 5055-5072, November.

    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. Negin Ashoori & David A. Dzombak & Mitchell J. Small, 2016. "Modeling the Effects of Conservation, Demographics, Price, and Climate on Urban Water Demand in Los Angeles, California," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 30(14), pages 5247-5262, November.
    2. Bich-Ngoc, Nguyen & Prevedello, Cédric & Cools, Mario & Teller, Jacques, 2022. "Factors influencing residential water consumption in Wallonia, Belgium," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    3. Mónica Maldonado-Devis & Vicent Almenar-Llongo, 2021. "A Panel Data Estimation of Domestic Water Demand with IRT Tariff Structure: The Case of the City of Valencia (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-26, January.
    4. Azar Niknam & Hasan Khademi Zare & Hassan Hosseininasab & Ali Mostafaeipour & Manuel Herrera, 2022. "A Critical Review of Short-Term Water Demand Forecasting Tools—What Method Should I Use?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-25, April.
    5. Michael O'Donnell & Robert P. Berrens, 2018. "Understanding Falling Municipal Water Demand in a Small City Dependent on the Declining Ogallala Aquifer: Case Study of Clovis, New Mexico," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-40, October.
    6. Diego Maria André & José Carvalho, 2014. "Spatial Determinants of Urban Residential Water Demand in Fortaleza, Brazil," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(9), pages 2401-2414, July.
    7. Saeed Ghavidelfar & Asaad Y. Shamseldin & Bruce W. Melville, 2017. "A Multi-Scale Analysis of Single-Unit Housing Water Demand Through Integration of Water Consumption, Land Use and Demographic Data," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(7), pages 2173-2186, May.
    8. Fuente, David & Kabubo-Mariara, Jane & Kimuyu, Peter & Mwaura, Mbutu & Whittington, Dale, 2017. "Assessing the Performance of Alternative Water and Sanitation Tariffs: The Case of Nairobi, Kenya," EfD Discussion Paper 17-21, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    9. Weijun Wang & Dan Zhao & Liguo Fan & Yulong Jia, 2019. "Study on Icing Prediction of Power Transmission Lines Based on Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition and Feature Selection Optimized Extreme Learning Machine," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-21, June.
    10. Arnaud Reynaud & Marc Pons & Cristina Pesado, 2018. "Household Water Demand in Andorra: Impact of Individual Metering and Seasonality," Post-Print hal-01891747, HAL.
    11. Lkhagvadorj Munkhdalai & Tsendsuren Munkhdalai & Oyun-Erdene Namsrai & Jong Yun Lee & Keun Ho Ryu, 2019. "An Empirical Comparison of Machine-Learning Methods on Bank Client Credit Assessments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-23, January.
    12. Nichols, Brice G. & Kockelman, Kara M., 2014. "Life-cycle energy implications of different residential settings: Recognizing buildings, travel, and public infrastructure," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 232-242.
    13. Pengfei Lin & Jinjun You & Hong Gan & Ling Jia, 2020. "Rule-Based Object-Oriented Water Resource System Simulation Model for Water Allocation," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 34(10), pages 3183-3197, August.
    14. Zardad Khan & Asma Gul & Aris Perperoglou & Miftahuddin Miftahuddin & Osama Mahmoud & Werner Adler & Berthold Lausen, 2020. "Ensemble of optimal trees, random forest and random projection ensemble classification," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 14(1), pages 97-116, March.
    15. Nastaran Chitsaz & Ali Azarnivand, 2017. "Water Scarcity Management in Arid Regions Based on an Extended Multiple Criteria Technique," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(1), pages 233-250, January.
    16. Chih-Hao Wang & Hongwei Dong, 2017. "Responding to the Drought: A Spatial Statistical Approach to Investigating Residential Water Consumption in Fresno, California," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-15, February.
    17. Xiao-Chen Yuan & Yi-Ming Wei & Su-Yan Pan & Ju-Liang Jin, 2014. "Urban Household Water Demand in Beijing by 2020: An Agent-Based Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(10), pages 2967-2980, August.
    18. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo & Bernard Barraqué, 2015. "Inter-basin transfers as a supply option: the end of an era?," Post-Print hal-01183852, HAL.
    19. Xunzhou Ma & Shiqiu Zhang & Quan Mu, 2014. "How Do Residents Respond to Price under Increasing Block Tariffs? Evidence from Experiments in Urban Residential Water Demand in Beijing," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(14), pages 4895-4909, November.
    20. Nikoleta Jones & Konstantinos Evangelinos & Petros Gaganis & Eugenia Polyzou, 2011. "Citizens’ Perceptions on Water Conservation Policies and the Role of Social Capital," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(2), pages 509-522, January.

    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:spr:waterr:v:29:y:2015:i:10:p:3877-3890. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.