Water use in buildings, accounts for a high percentage of overall water use in cities. With development and growth there has been an increasing demand for water in India. There has been a mismatch between supply and demand because of distribution losses, changing lifestyles etc leading to situations of conflict. Developing water fixtures that use water efficiently is key to reducing this mismatch.
Divided into 7 sections beginning with the water crisis in India, the paper then shifts from the macro to the micro, moving from the topic of 'water intensive cities' to 'nature of water use in buildings'. The fourth section on efficiency improvement explains how various water fixtures like cisterns work.
The chapter on the sanitary ware market in India gains importance when the issue of regulation and enforcement is looked into. Issues of unregistered sanitary ware producers using fake BIS labels for water efficiency is brought up, as such products are not water efficient as they claim to be.
The paper also points out to a distinct geographical divide in water use - people in the North purchase cisterns with greater volume.
Comparison of water fixture efficiency and labeling programmes of different countries including WELS of Australia, WaterSense of the USA, ANQIP of Portugal finds place in this report.
The paper ends with with a discussion on legislation, regulation, licensing, pricing of these fixtures and behavioural changes, which are ways of how water can be managed sustainably.
The document can be downloaded from the CSE website here.
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