A multidisciplinary team from the Universidad del Valle (Univalle) is starting a large study in the Colombian city of Cali to learn how people use water at home. The project has been developed in international collaboration together with other projects related to water security in the upper basin of the Cauca River.
“Domestic Use of Water Practices 2022 (PUDA2022) is an innovative project on the ways in which water is used in homes in Cali,” David Chaquea , a doctoral student and coordinator of the project, within the CINARA Institute, affiliated with the Univalle College of Engineering, said.
In 2016, Cali was using an average of 780 million liters of water per day, around 390 Olympic swimming pools, according to a report from Emcali.
The Survey of Domestic Water Use Practices (EPUDA2022) focuses on 6 specific practices: laundry, showering, using the toilet, washing hands, brushing teeth and washing dishes. More than 400 variables related to the products used, the sequence, duration, reasons and expectations, allow a detailed description of each of the practices.
"Even within the same home, each person can use water in different ways and with particular goals, for example, someone who bathes to cleanse their body will do so in a different way than someone who bathes to feel relaxed," explained Chaquea, adding that in more specific aspects, for example, someone with long hair will shower in a very different way than someone with short hair.
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| Photo: Members of the PUDA2022 project, under the Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub branding. Credit: Edgar Bejarano/NCC/Univalle |
The Great Survey
In 2021, the team, which today is made up of 11 junior researchers, two graduates and Chaquea, used conversations with 91 people to identify the relevant variables, and an online trial and a pilot with more than 150 to formulate the 2022 survey forms.
Over the course of 2022, the goal of the project is to reach 382 households in the 22 administrative subvisions of Cali and survey around 1,000 people. To ensure that the results will be representative of domestic water use in the city, the team conducted random sampling at the city-block level in which data from households in different sectors with diverse sociodemographic and economic characteristics could be captured.
“For us, the domestic use of water is a complex system of practices carried out by household members, and that is why we need to talk to most household members… This is why it is very important to inform the community about what we are doing and the great value of their participation”, said Chaquea.
Another fundamental part of the project is the dissemination of the scientific results for the participants, and the general public, and that is why they are developing an alternative way to present the collected and processed data.
“The way each person uses water has many variations, so, from our survey, we can find millions of combinations of answers,” Chaquea explained, “But our job is to identify the patterns that are hidden in each of these answers."
Chaquea stated that one of the most ambitious goals of the study is to identify the conditions of resistance to change or openess to change in domestic water use practices, and develop a baseline that can contribute to the development of strategies to move towards alternative forms of water use, which are less intensive in consumption.
"Sometimes, government strategies or environmental institutions that encourage people to use less water, or punish them for excessive use, are not effective enough," said Chaquea, adding that with more detailed data it is possible to develop specific strategies. that allow the emergence of alternative forms of use and thus promote change.
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| Photo: A survey, similar to the one that will be implemented in the PUDA2022 project. Credit: Edgar Bejarano/NCC/Univalle |
Making The Most of International Collaboration
PUDA2022 is part of the Hub for Water Security and Sustainable Development, which is an international and interdisciplinary research project with partners in five countries: Colombia, Ethiopia, India, England and Malaysia. It is financially supported with funds from the Global Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) thanks to UKRI, a UK non-governmental organization for research and innovation.Dr Helen Underhill, a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University explained that she and Chaquea are working together within the RMGC (Research Methods for Global Challenges) to create an accessible form of visualization of the results of the EPUDA2022, which will soon be hosted on the Water Security Hub website.
“David's work gives us crucial insight into how people use water, opening up the 'black box' of the household to uncover the nuances between individual users, and reintroducing human messiness and complication back into the story of domestic water provision and use,” Dr Underhill explained.
She also said that Chaquea is “innovating in data visualisation and communication”, which is another key prioirty for the Water Security Hub, as they look towards the impact our research can have.
Dr. Underhill explained that international cooperation in research is vital to move towards what the Portuguese philosopher Sousa Santos calls the "a dialogue or ecology of knowledges.”
We need this more than ever, to respond to global crises such as the Covid pandemic, and the climate and biodiversity emergency," she said, "I am learning every day from my colleagues, both in the UK and in the developing world/Global South, and am grateful for the new perspectives, knowledges and challenges that these collaborations offer."
If you would like to contact the researchers or learn more about the project, please write to us at the Communications Office of the Faculty of Engineering: comunicaingenieria(at)correounivalle.edu.co.
Banner Photo: The PUDA2022 Team. Credit: Édgar Bejarano/NCC/Univalle
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