Introduction To The Challenge
India's water crisis has affected large segments of the population over the past few years. The gravity of the situation has been increasing year-on-year - number of districts reeling under drought situations has risen, scale of crop failures is increasing and the number of urban areas facing water shortage has multiplied.
The Indian government has made attempts to solve the water availability issues but the efforts so far don't match up against the scale or complexity of the problem. India needs is a multi-pronged approach to solve the problem of water scarcity, just like we fought the polio endemic. The magnitude of the problem is so large that all the stakeholders - the policy makers, the government machinery and the citizens - need to work hand in hand to solve the problem.
Overall Solution
There are multiple sides to the problem and hence the holistic solution has multiple facets:
- Managing surface level water resources effectively
- Improving the water distribution uniformly across the country
- Promoting water harvesting to improve underground water table
- Efficient usage of water by reducing water wastage
- Investing in water body rejuvenation
- Research to generate fresh water from sea water
Most of these require significant investment from government in terms of policy making as well as monetary impetus. However, the focus of this blog is to delve deeper into citizen-centric solution of reducing water wastage. This is something that we as citizens can enable or implement, thus taking a big stride towards solving India's water crisis.
Reducing Water Wastage via Monitoring / Data
Just thinking about the typical uses of water in our daily lives, one can identify multiple measures that can be taken to reduce water wastage. If these can be identified so easily, why don't we implement these? If we implement these, why do we go back to our old ways over time? The answer lies in the fact that the human brain seeks feedback - positive or negative - about all actions that one takes. In case of water saving measures, since we don't get any concrete information about amount of savings and overall impact, we tend to abandon these measures over time.
Prototype
The solution proposed here is to install small water meters at each house, each apartment, each tap (if feasible), each water storage facility and each water source. These water meters track usage of water at a very granular level - storing usage information on a every 10, 20, or 30-minute level. A prototype sketch of how the system would look is shown below -
This granular information is relayed back to data servers maintained by the water utility company. The company uses this to understand usage patterns, predict usage in different situations and run targeted awareness drives in localities with poor record. The aggregate data can be fed back to the government to make policy amendments to achieve the final goals.
The information from the water meters is also relayed to the user as "alerts" in real time and the system also allows them to see accumulated reports by accessing the database through utility company's website.
Storyboard
Most important to note is that the real time "alerts" with act as positive / negative feedback to users. The hope is that this feedback will act as a positive reinforcement and will eventually lead to change the behaviour. After some time, the water saving efforts will become ingrained in one's psyche and hence lead to significant increases in water usage efficiencies. The below storyboard pens down this hope with before / after comparison -
Experiment
As mentioned above, the proposed solution makes a fundamental assumption that people will naturally develop the habit of water saving if they are made aware of their water usage patterns on a real time basis. Hence, one can carry out a small experiment to test this assumption or hypothesis.
What is The Hypothesis -
If a person is given real time information about water usage, over time, he/she will develop a water saving habit by way of positive reinforcement.
What Is The Experiment -
Post Experiment
If the experiment turns out to be a success, one can implement another few incremental experiments to come up with a good usage model for this system. This can be further developed into a business case in case it turns out to be attractive.
Conclusion
This post goes into implementation of only one solution and is just a part of the entire holistic solution discussed above. India will have to take many small steps to reach the goal elimination of water scarcity. It is certain that we have to show a lot of will-power and tenacity to see this through if we want to solve India's water crisis.
India's water crisis has affected large segments of the population over the past few years. The gravity of the situation has been increasing year-on-year - number of districts reeling under drought situations has risen, scale of crop failures is increasing and the number of urban areas facing water shortage has multiplied.
The Indian government has made attempts to solve the water availability issues but the efforts so far don't match up against the scale or complexity of the problem. India needs is a multi-pronged approach to solve the problem of water scarcity, just like we fought the polio endemic. The magnitude of the problem is so large that all the stakeholders - the policy makers, the government machinery and the citizens - need to work hand in hand to solve the problem.
Overall Solution
There are multiple sides to the problem and hence the holistic solution has multiple facets:
- Managing surface level water resources effectively
- Improving the water distribution uniformly across the country
- Promoting water harvesting to improve underground water table
- Efficient usage of water by reducing water wastage
- Investing in water body rejuvenation
- Research to generate fresh water from sea water
Most of these require significant investment from government in terms of policy making as well as monetary impetus. However, the focus of this blog is to delve deeper into citizen-centric solution of reducing water wastage. This is something that we as citizens can enable or implement, thus taking a big stride towards solving India's water crisis.
Reducing Water Wastage via Monitoring / Data
Just thinking about the typical uses of water in our daily lives, one can identify multiple measures that can be taken to reduce water wastage. If these can be identified so easily, why don't we implement these? If we implement these, why do we go back to our old ways over time? The answer lies in the fact that the human brain seeks feedback - positive or negative - about all actions that one takes. In case of water saving measures, since we don't get any concrete information about amount of savings and overall impact, we tend to abandon these measures over time.
Prototype
The solution proposed here is to install small water meters at each house, each apartment, each tap (if feasible), each water storage facility and each water source. These water meters track usage of water at a very granular level - storing usage information on a every 10, 20, or 30-minute level. A prototype sketch of how the system would look is shown below -
This granular information is relayed back to data servers maintained by the water utility company. The company uses this to understand usage patterns, predict usage in different situations and run targeted awareness drives in localities with poor record. The aggregate data can be fed back to the government to make policy amendments to achieve the final goals.
The information from the water meters is also relayed to the user as "alerts" in real time and the system also allows them to see accumulated reports by accessing the database through utility company's website.
Storyboard
Most important to note is that the real time "alerts" with act as positive / negative feedback to users. The hope is that this feedback will act as a positive reinforcement and will eventually lead to change the behaviour. After some time, the water saving efforts will become ingrained in one's psyche and hence lead to significant increases in water usage efficiencies. The below storyboard pens down this hope with before / after comparison -
Experiment
As mentioned above, the proposed solution makes a fundamental assumption that people will naturally develop the habit of water saving if they are made aware of their water usage patterns on a real time basis. Hence, one can carry out a small experiment to test this assumption or hypothesis.
What is The Hypothesis -
If a person is given real time information about water usage, over time, he/she will develop a water saving habit by way of positive reinforcement.
What Is The Experiment -
- Install water meters in 20 apartments in an apartment complex.
- Send real time email alerts about water usage and notional charges to 10 apartments.
- For the other 10 apartments, at the end of the day, send only one email with consolidated information.
- Survey the residents of the 20 apartments to understand what they feel about their daily water usage - is it high/low, can usage be reduced, how can they save water.
What Is The Cost Of The Experiment -
Rent 20 water meters, each approx. Rs. 200 = Rs. 4000.
What Is The Measure of Success -
The experiment can be called successful if the residents who got real time alerts are able to assess that they are using more water than required and are able to give few examples of how they can save water.
Post Experiment
If the experiment turns out to be a success, one can implement another few incremental experiments to come up with a good usage model for this system. This can be further developed into a business case in case it turns out to be attractive.
Conclusion
This post goes into implementation of only one solution and is just a part of the entire holistic solution discussed above. India will have to take many small steps to reach the goal elimination of water scarcity. It is certain that we have to show a lot of will-power and tenacity to see this through if we want to solve India's water crisis.
Good Thought Ameya. I agree that providing feedback does impact human behavior. In my opinion you can collect the usage data for 20 days. For first 10 days send no alerts. For next 10 days send regular alert of usage (alert message content can also contribute to motivation); and then check if the water usage has reduced. This can be measurement of success.
ReplyDeleteAs part of business - this meter, can be extended to check for water purity, or alert / auto stop (if a tap has been on more than what it should) etc.
Some other initiatives can also be looked into such as - in Japan Washbasin's water is directed to Flush (infact Lid of Flush is Wash Basin); or using fishes to clean water post washing the dishes etc.
We all citizens have to be more sensitive and serious towards the Water wastage issue; and I believe Initiatives like these will help to make citizens more responsible.