Residential water demand analysis in Hilla City

Abstract EN

This paper investigates the analysis of residential water demand for the city of Hilla which is the main town in Babylon government in Iraq( Population of about 258568 person, living in an area of 55 Km2 according to Central Committee of Statistics–Babylon Census Directorate-1997) along with determining the factors that affect such demand for the period from the 1st of January to the end of August -2004.

The cross-section data which was weekly observed was collected by a survey made on a sample of randomly chosen dwellings from different districts of the city.

A questionnaire survey was also made to collect all necessary information seemed useful in estimating the daily consumption of domestic water.

Demand relations are estimated for total residential, winter, summer, and Sprinkling demands.

Stepwise multiple regression analysis was employed to find the structural relationship between water demand per household per day and household characteristics (factors) for each type of demand.

All demand models were fitted in log-linear form.

In this survey, the average daily water demand for the city of Hilla was estimated to be 1721 L / h / d (273.2L / c / d) for total model, 586.13 L / h / d ( 93L / c / d) for winter model, 2453 L / h / d( 389.4L / c / d) for summer model and 490 L / h / d (77.8L / c / d) for sprinkling model.

The most significant factors affecting the demand appear in the fitted equation.

Of these factors, household size was found to be significant variable in all demand models, while number of washbasins variable was found to be the significant variable in the total, winter, and summer model.

The total built–up area of the house and number of showers was found to be the significant variables in the total and summer models.