Domestic Water Demand Forecasting: A Static Microsimulation Approach

Planning the provision of a future water supply depends upon forecasts of likely demand. Existing forecasting techniques suffer from a lack of spatially relevant information on likely trends in the micro-components of demand. At a sub-regional level, current approaches also understate between-area variability. A static micro-simulation model is described, which makes more efficient use of existing data in producing forecasts of domestic water consumption. Spatially detailed synthetic microdata are reweighted towards level population estimates which are derived from official Government population projections. A 30% increase in domestic consumption between 1991 and 2025 is forecast for the Yorkshire Water region, three-quarters of which is attributable to changes in consumer behaviour.