An investigation of domestic water consumption through taps and its impact on urban water flows

Taps are an important micro-component of domestic water consumption. This paper describes the characteristics of a water consumption dataset utilised for a tap use investigation study. The measured tap water consumption data was investigated to establish the tap use distributions with respect to flow and duration and identify factors influencing tap use patterns. In order to quantify the influence of usage patterns, a methodology has been proposed and implemented to demonstrate its application for developing water consumption and wastewater discharge profiles for a range of tap use scenarios. The results indicate that some 30% of household residents ‘consume’ between 20 and 30 l/head.day water through tap usage. Over 60% were found to use taps for 5 to 10 minutes everyday. Water consumption diurnal patterns were found to be more sensitive to tap use scenarios than wastewater discharge profiles.