Abstract

Interacting and Spatially Located Water Demand Drivers in Spokane, Washington
Track: Water, Wastewater, and Stormwater
Authors: Kate Tillotson

A wide variety of water demand drivers exist and interact in complex and often conflicting ways. GIS allows for spatial analysis of drivers: this is vastly important because spatial cultural drivers (neighborhood values) often conflict with predicted used based on economic or physical drivers alone. Focusing on one water district in Spokane, WA I examined two of three major types of water demand drivers: physical, such as precipitation and slope, and socio-economic drivers, such as educational attainment and income. Cluster analysis was used to determine correlations between a suite of drivers and actual connection-level water use by creating an index to combine drivers and compare directly to very high or very low water use. These clusters can be used to target interviews to assess socio-cultural drivers of water use. Together these drivers can help Spokane County better plan for future water demand based on scenarios created from my findings.