Smart Metering, Water Pricing and Social Media to Stimulate Residential Water Efficiency: Opportunities for the SmartH2O Project

Multi-Country Scale Assessment of Available Energy Recovery Potential Using Micro-Hydropower in Drinking, Pressurised Irrigation and Wastewater Networks, Covering Part of the EU

Studies have shown micro-hydropower (MHP) opportunities for energy recovery and CO2 reductions in the water sector. This paper conducts a large-scale assessment of this potential using a dataset amassed across six EU countries (Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Spain, and Portugal) for the drinking water, irrigation, and wastewater sectors. Extrapolating the collected data, the total annual MHP potential was estimated between 482.3 and 821.6 GWh, depending on the assumptions, divided among Ireland (15.5–32.2 GWh), Scotland (17.8–139.7 GWh), Northern Ireland (5.9–8.2 GWh), Wales (10.2–8.1 GWh), Spain (375.3–539.9 GWh), and Portugal (57.6–93.5 GWh) and distributed across the drinking water (43–67%), irrigation (51–30%), and wastewater (6–3%) sectors. The findings demonstrated reductions in energy consumption in water networks between 1.7 and 13.0%. Forty-five percent of the energy estimated from the analysed sites was associated with just 3% of their number, having a power output capacity >15 kW. This demonstrated that a significant proportion of energy could be exploited at a small number of sites, with a valuable contribution to net energy efficiency gains and CO2 emission reductions. This also demonstrates cost-effective, value-added, multi-country benefits to policy makers, establishing the case to incentivise MHP in water networks to help achieve the desired CO2 emissions reductions targets.

Participatory water conservation education on social media in Amathole District local municipalities, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Social media has been attributed as beneficial by aiding fast and reliable communication which cuts across time and geographical boundaries. In South Africa, reports indicate that most people have access to social media. Such attributes can be harnessed by municipalities to educate about water conservation, especially considering the drought and water crisis that was experienced in Eastern Cape, South Africa. This paper focused on local municipalities in Amathole District in the Eastern Cape Province, which was declared a high risk zone due to the drought that prevailed in 2016 till 2017. The Government to Citizen Model (G2C) was used as a theoretical framework which supports participation. Purposive sampling was used, with water messages being prioritised. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse content on the local municipalities’ social media platforms. The researchers found that local municipalities in Amathole District, excluding the district municipality, were not using social media platforms for participatory water conservation education.