This paper is concerned with the relationships between urbanisation and residential water consumption, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. More precisely, it investigates the influence of certain demographic, behavioural and housing factors on this consumption using descriptive statistics and a regression analysis. The data are derived from a sample of 532 households in 22 municipalities of the study area. Results show that income, housing type, members per household, the presence of outdoor uses (garden and swimming pool), the kind of species planted in the garden and consumer behaviour towards conservation practices play a significant role in explaining variations in water consumption. It is concluded that, along with prices and incomes, further research is needed on other demographic and housing variables in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the determinants of domestic water consumption in areas periodically affected by water stress.

Urban sprawl is eroding the traditionally compact, diverse, and mixed Southern European cities. Besides the rise in land and energy consumption, the expansion of low density urban forms also affects water, a critical resource in the region. This study examines garden watering in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona in order to illustrate the importance of outdoor water use in the urbanization process, and, following the insights provided by urban political ecology, to highlight the differences in garden types and water spending according to power relations derived from income levels. Results indicate that, generally, higher income households prefer and can afford more water-consuming Atlantic gardens whereas lower income households have to resort to more climate-adapted species. These differences produce in turn different urban natures based on who can and who cannot afford water costs. [

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Swimming pools constitute an important part of the expanding suburban landscapes of many cities of southern Europe. Yet we know relatively little about their characteristics and especially about whether or not they capture a substantial part of urban water for the benefit of a few that could be used for other more essential tasks, especially in periods of scarcity. In this paper, taking the metropolitan region of Barcelona as a case study, we estimate the number of residential (private) swimming pools in this area, their characteristics and their water consumption. Our analysis is set against the context of important changes in the nature of the urbanisation process in Barcelona and in other southern European cities, namely the expansion of low-density growth and with this the expansion of outdoor water uses such as gardens planted with turf grass and swimming pools. However, results do not seem to support the assumption that swimming pools take a substantial part of the domestic water resources of the region or that they are a luxury affordable only by the very rich. Swimming pools represent little over 1 per cent of total domestic water consumption of the Barcelona region and they can be found in both higher and lower income municipalities. Nevertheless, swimming pools tend to be more often found in richer municipalities, which are also those observing higher per capita water consumption.a rea_961 67..75 * Per cent over all residential units. Lpd: litres per person per day Source: Own elaboration 70 Vidal et al.