Impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) spread-prevention actions on urban water consumption

Abstract

This article aims to assess the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) spread-prevention actions on water consumption, based on a case study in Joinville, Southern Brazil. Residential water consumption data, obtained through telemetry in two periods (before and after a governmental action imposing quarantine and social isolation), were analyzed. Complementarily, the analyses were also applied to the commercial, industrial and public consumption categories. For the analysis, Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric tests were applied and Prais-Winsten regression models were adjusted. The results of the Wilcoxon test show that there are significant differences between the analyzed periods, indicating a water consumption drop in the commercial, industrial and public categories, and an increase in the residential category. The regression model results confirm the effect of the restrictive actions in reducing consumption in non-residential categories. The results also indicate an increase in water consumption, which was steeper in apartment buildings than in houses, whether isolated or grouped in condominiums. A weak association was found between the variation in water consumption and the spatial distribution of buildings. Understanding water consumption related aspects is important to gather essential information to ensure the urban water supply system is resilient in a pandemic situation.

Novel insights into impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on aquatic environment of Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in southern Jiangsu region

“…After the Spring Festival holiday, the Jiangsu Province announced that the industrial plants should continue to shut down until February 9th. ( Kalbusch et al, 2020 ) confirmed that the industrial activities possessed the greatest reduction in water consumption and the variations of water consumption in residential category was not significant during the lockdown of the COVID-19 epidemic. These results suggested that the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic would significantly change the discharge amount of industrial wastewater, which might give positive impacts on water quality.…”

COVID-19 Risk Assessment: Contributing to Maintaining Urban Public Health Security and Achieving Sustainable Urban Development

“…The high-risk areas for epidemic are mainly concentrated in the areas with more intensive permanent population and more frequent interaction among people [7,19], which has also been proven to be correct by previous research. However, comparing with previous research, this study not only takes various urban spatial factors into account to comprehensively discussing the influencing degree of different factors, but also analyzes the distribution of epidemic risk level comprehensively and objectively, which could be instrumental to the target prevention and control of regional epidemic.…”

“…Since the breakout of COVID-19, relevant research about the epidemic are mainly carried out from the perspective of population mobility [79], regardless whether in the range of region or country even of the global world. Population mobility has indeed played an important role in the risk assessment of epidemic and it has also been proven that it is one of the most crucial factors that could enormously influence the epidemic risk [7]. However, population mobility is not the only factor that results in a higher risk for COVID-19, and that is why this study objectively assesses the risk level of epidemic on the basis of comprehensively considering population, public places and other open special factors.…”

“…Many studies about clinical diagnosis [6], transmission relationship [7], drug vaccine [8], spatiotemporal pattern [9], risk assessment [10], and epidemic transmission [11] of COVID-19 have been done by scholars since the breakout of the epidemic, which has made great contributions to the prevention and control of COVID-19. With the arrival of the post-epidemic period, the risk assessment of epidemic has gradually become the focus of attention [12,13].…”

COVID-19 Lockdown Disruptions on Water Resources, Wastewater, and Agriculture in India

“…Recent sensor-based techniques for replacing the traditional water meter can be used to monitor the water usage in the domestic and commercial sectors. Toward such a goal, Kalbusch et al (2020) analyzed the water consumption data of the city of Joinville in Brazil using various statistical methods such as the Shapiro-Wilk normality test (Ghasemi and Zahediasl, 2012), and a non-parametric paired Wilcoxon test (Tian et al, 2019). The results revealed that there is more water consumption in residential buildings compared to industrial and public buildings before and after the lockdown periods.…”