Household water end-uses have been extracted from high-resolution smart water meter data in various earlier studies. However, research on end-use disaggregation from rudimentary data is limited. Rudimentary data is defined as data recorded in intervals longer than 1 min, or data recorded with resolutions larger than 0.1 L/pulse. Developing countries typically deal with rudimentary data, due to the high cost and high resource investment associated with high-resolution data. The aim of this study was to extract useful event characteristics from rudimentary data, without identifying the actual end-uses per se. A case study was conducted in the City of Johannesburg, South Africa, where 63 homes were equipped with iPERL smart water meters. The meters recorded flow measurements every 15 s at a 1 L/pulse resolution, rendering the recorded data rudimentary. A total of 1,107,547 event pulses were extracted over the 217-day study period. Although the method presented is limited in the sense that water use events cannot be identified, the method allows for disaggregation of event pulses in the presence of rudimentary data. Using this tool, it is possible to lift valuable information from rudimentary data that would subsequently benefit service providers in setting water demand strategies.

This paper presents and evaluates the 13C NMR spectra of aqueous cyclic ethyleneureas that are used as reagents or occur as intermediates in the commercial production of durable-press fabrics. These include cyclic ethyleneurea (EU), methylethyleneurea (MeEU), dimethylethyleneurea (DMeEU), dihydroxyethyleneurea (DHEU), monomethyloldihydroxyethyleneurea (MMDHEU), dimethylol-4,5-dihydroxyethyleneurea (DMDHEU), and /V,A/'-bis(methoxymethyl)-4,5-dimethoxyethyleneurea. The composition and equilibria of both commercial and laboratory-prepared DMDHEU solutions and two partially methylated commercial DMDHEU solutions used in the production of durable-press fabrics are explored.

Distinguishing between indoor use and outdoor use is becoming increasingly important, especially in water-scarce regions, since outdoor use is typically targeted during water restrictions. Household water use is typically measured at a single water meter, and the resolution of the metered data is typically too coarse to employ on commercially available disaggregation software, such as flow trace analysis. This study is the first to classify end-use events from a rudimentary data set, into indoor use or outdoor use. This case study was conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa, and quantified the volume of water used indoors and outdoors at 63 residential properties over 217 days. A recently developed model for classifying water use events as either indoor or outdoor, based on rudimentary water meter data, was employed in this study. A total of 212,060 single end-use events were classified as being either indoor or outdoor. The indoor and outdoor consumptions were compared with survey results. It was found that 30% of all events were outdoor, based on the total volume.

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Garden irrigation is a significant and variable household water end‑use, while groundwater abstraction may be a notable supplementary water source available in some serviced residential areas. Residential groundwater is abstracted by means of garden boreholes or well points and – in the study area – abstracted groundwater is typically used for garden irrigation. The volume irrigated per event is a function of event duration, frequency of application and flow rate, which in turn are dependent on numerous factors that vary by source – including water availability, pressure and price. The temperature variation of groundwater abstraction pipes at residential properties was recorded and analysed as part of this study in order to estimate values for three model inputs, namely, pumping event duration, irrigation frequency, and flow rate. This research incorporates a basic end‑use model for garden irrigation, with inputs derived from the case study in Cape Town, South Africa.  The model was subsequently used to stochastically evaluate garden irrigation. Over an 11-d period, 68 garden irrigation events were identified in the sample group of 10 residential properties. The average garden irrigation event duration was 2 h 16 min and the average daily garden irrigation event volume was 1.39 m3.