Increase in Daily Household Water Demand during the First Wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Germany

Abstract

Precautionary measures and governmental regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first wave have drastically altered daily activities and hence water consumption patterns. Many people had to change their working routines, the organization of childcare and hygiene practices. While first evidence appears on the impacts of COVID-19 on, e.g., carbon emissions, energy demand and water treatment, even indicating an unexpected increase in water consumption during that period, no study has investigated the pandemic’s sole and in-depth implications for water supply so far. This paper investigates hourly and daily water consumption volumes of a utility in northern Germany for the first wave of the pandemic. We performed a linear mixed model to compare the 2020 daily water consumption volumes with previous years. We eliminated the effects of climate using Bayesian statistic in order to carve out and estimate the original COVID-19 effect. We also compared hourly water consumption of similar time periods and calculated the percentage difference between 2020 and the two previous years. Our results reveal about 14.3% (3 968 m3) higher residential water consumption per day with higher morning and evening demand peaks during the day. We hypothesis that the reasons for the increasing water demand may be found in changed behavioral routines with an important question for water utilities, if and which of these new dynamics may persist after COVID-19 and hence pose a challenge for long-term infrastructure planning.

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“…In Nepal, water consumption increased during the COVID-19 lockdown (Shrestha et al 2021 ). In Germany, residential water consumption increased by 14.3%, per day, during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lüdtke et al 2021 ). In Emirates, residential water demand increased during the COVID-19 pandemic (Rizvi et al 2021 ).…”

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“…Similar observation of increased water use prompted by the novel COVID-19 disease spread was made by Nemati [7] in in residential areas in California. In the same vein, Ludtko et al [8] attributed the daily increase in daily water use to the behavioural change as a result of the prevalence of COVID-19 disease. In addition, none of the schools claimed having any crises as a result upsurge in water demand for hand-washing to curtail the spread of COVID-19 disease.…”

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“…The non-residential water consumption decreased by 38% during full lockdown and 14.5% during the reopening period. (Lüdtke et al [71]) Germany 14.3% increase in residential water consumption per day with higher morning and evening demand peaks during the day.…”

“…The COVID-19 pandemic may also shift the peak of residential water use [70,71]. WatEner, [72] compared recorded water data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic for Karlsruhe, Germany during March 2020.…”