Domestic water consumption benchmark development for Hong Kong

Abstract

Fresh water consumption is of primary importance to the design of water systems in sustainable buildings and various benchmarks of water consumption have been developed for the indication of building sustainability. For rating probable water consumption performance in residential buildings, simple normalization with a single parameter might not be indicative and complicated benchmarking models could impose difficulties in general adaptation. In this study, a simple benchmarking model for residential buildings was developed using Monte-Carlo simulations. The model was tested in a case study based on an existing domestic water consumption survey in which the average water consumption distribution of 60 apartments in Hong Kong was the input of the simulation model. The distribution was compared with the Hong Kong global fresh water consumption patterns to derive the water consumption benchmarks for residential buildings in the region. This simple model could be useful for benchmarking the domestic water consumptions and for promoting sustainable building practices without inclusive measurements. Practical application: The proposed simple benchmarking model for water consumption of residential buildings could be useful for promoting sustainable building practices without inclusive measurements.