The SmartH2O project and the role of social computing in promoting efficient residential water use: a first analysis

SmartH2O is an EU funded project which aims at creating a virtuous feedback cycle between water users and the utilities, providing users information on their consumption in quasi real time, and thus enabling water utilities to plan and implement strategies to reduce/reallocate water consumption. Traditional metering data, usually gathered twice a year, can be used to model consumers’ behaviour at an aggregate level, but the motivations and individual attitudes of consumers are hidden. The advent of smart water meters allows gathering high frequency consumption data that can be used to provide instantaneous information to water utilities on the state of the network. At the same time, the consumption information can be fed back to the user to stimulate increased awareness on water use. The SmartH2O project aims at developing methodologies to involve consumers and promote water savings by increasing their awareness, using a social computing approach, and also exploring their sensitivity to water prices, e.g., to penalise water waste during droughts. In this paper, first we review similar experiences that exploit consumer awareness to reduce consumption, then we review the role of persuasive games for sustainability, and finally we present the SmartH2O approach, sketching the architecture of its modelling and social computing components.