Determine Components of Household Water Consumption Per Capita in Rural Communities (Case Study: South Khorasan province, Iran)

The piped water consumption per capita is more than 142 cubic meters per year in Iran that is higher than the consumption per capita of some water-filled European countries such as Belgium and Austria. The use of drinking water for washing dishes, clothes, cars as well as bathing and watering gardens are of the important reasons for piped water high consumption in Iran. However, different lifestyle patterns, water users’ facilities, culture and employment types of the majority, as well as very different climatic conditions in rural areas of the country, have caused different water needs. Therefore, it is necessary to determine different components of household water consumption by doing regional and zonal studies separately throughout the country. For this, three water supply complexes of Ali Abad Looleh, Khoor, and Vahdat were selected according to climatic, economic and social conditions among water supply complexes of South Khorasan province. In this study, 128 common water was randomly selected by considering economic - social and household size conditions. Then, to measure every component of water per capita, including drinking, bathing, washing and watering home green space different counters were inserted at homes. Counters were read daily for a week. Results showed that the average water consumption per capita was 99.9 liters a day for the province rural communities. In addition, the contribution of each component of water per capita, including drinking, bathing, washing and watering home green space were 3.6, 15.7, 63.1 and 17.5 liters a day.