MODELLING THE TENDENCIES OF A RESIDENTIAL POPULATION TO CONSERVE WATER

Abstract

Water scarcity is both a global and a local phenomenon. In order to address this, investigations into water demand management strategies and the conservation tendencies of a population are imperative. This paper investigates the tendencies of a residential population in the City of Cape Town to conserve water in response to certain demand management strategies, using an agent-based simulation approach. The model allows for the population in a ward of interest to be defined by certain attributes, such as income level and access to information. The user may trigger certain demand management strategies during the simulation run, and visually explore the changes in environmental awareness and conservation tendency of the user-defined population. The model has the ability to be used as an investigative tool to explore the effect of different water demand management strategies on the tendencies of households in different wards of Cape Town to conserve water.