Cross-sectional study of factors influencing the residential water demand in Bangalore

The study investigates the influences of demographic and infrastructural covariates that drive the household water demand in the 198 municipal wards of Bangalore, India. In contrast to previous studies that rely on direct household income data, this study captures the household income effect on water demand with a set of proxy income covariates such as average built-up area, proportion of households in different income categories, per capita park area, population density, road infrastructure, etc. The macro-level demand study uses cross-sectional data comprising of dependent and independent variables of 198 municipal wards of Bangalore in the month of July 2015. Linear and non-linear demand models estimate the influence of factors using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method and results are compared. Results indicate that average built-up area, proportion of high income households and per capita park area positively influence the water demand while the number of members per household negatively influences water demand.