Author
Sustainable development goals
Theme
- water use efficiency
- water demand management
Tools
- smart meters
- ICT for big data analysis
- app
- gamification
What does the promoted behavioral change consist of?
The basic idea, deriving from the theories and experiments of behavioral economics, is that greater knowledge and awareness about one’s consumption, as well as greater information (“feedback”) on how to make one’s consumption more efficient, can encourage users to adopt virtuous behaviors aimed at greater conservation of the water resource.
What are the main features of the tools designed/implemented to promote behavioral change and how have they been tested?
- smart meters : “intelligent” water meters to record high resolution space-time data;
- “big data” analysis to characterize citizens’ behaviors and patterns of water consumption;
- ICT solutions to display consumption information, promote virtuous behavior through feedback to users about their consumption, comparisons with the behavior of similar users and “gamification” mechanisms aimed at rewarding virtuous behavior.
The SmartH2O platform was tested in two pilot cases. The first, in Tegna (Switzerland), in collaboration with the Società Elettrica Sopracenerina and comprising a few hundred users, was set up as a development and test case for both smart meters, installed for the first time as part of the SmartH2O project, and for techniques of data acquisition, analysis, visualization and communication. The second, in Valencia (Spain) in collaboration with Global Omnium – EMIVASA, was the largest case of experimentation of the platform’s effects on user behavior. In Valencia, a few hundred users actively participated in the project and several thousand users have smart meters, therefore constituting a potential user base for the platform.
What results have been achieved? What are the potentials and obstacles?
- Global Omnium – EMIVASA (Valencia) users registered on the SmartH2O platform showed an average consumption 20% lower than a group of users not registered on the platform;
- even the smallest SmartH2O user base of SES (Switzerland) showed more efficient consumption behavior, with consumption on average 10% lower than non-subscribers;
- the interviews done through surveys showed that users participating in SmartH2O had a greater awareness of water consumption.
According to these results, the potential for use and further development of the SmartH2O platform to influence behaviors connected to water consumption is high, and a longer-term and larger-scale use would give more information about the effectiveness of the platform. The biggest challenge is in fact to understand how to facilitate the active engagement of many users and how to maintain in the long term the effect of behavioral change.
[last update: 6/12/2018]
Research team at PoliMi
Andrea Castelletti, Piero Fraternali, Matteo Giuliani, Andrea Cominola, Chiara Pasini, Luca Galli, Giorgia Baroffio – DEIB
Paola Garrone, Riccardo Marzano – DIG
PROJECT
SH2O – the smart H2O project (2014-2017)
funded by the UE FP7 programme, Grant Agreement N. 619172