Household Water Demand Forecasting and Implications for Water Use Efficiency and Accessibility: A study conducted among staff of Bowen University, Iwo, Nigeria

Abstract Spatial and temporal accessibility to water, especially, for household use is expedient to healthy living. Predictive models were developed using multiple regression to forecast household water use and also assess the significance of water demand forecasting to water use efficiency and its accessibility in homes. Data used for the study were generated through questionnaire administration and these were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Domestic water uses consist of 10 defined components (Drinking, Cooking, Bathing, Washing, Cleaning, Auto-wash, Lawn watering, Coolant/Chiller, Incidental and Livestock) proportionately distributed within Coolant/Chiller and Washing regime and ranged from 0.12% to 38.53% respectively among the regime components. Results of the regression analyses revealed that two home water use components namely Washing and Auto-wash predict home water use at 95% level of confidence with R2 of 0.872 and the Standard Error of 28.91. The Incidental use component was not significant and may be ignored in the computation. Two predictive components namely Washing and Auto-wash generally explain excessive use of water in homes and must be considered to enhance the efficient use and unrestricted accessibility of this vital resource.