IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i20p6777-d658568.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Understanding the Key Determinants of Residential Firewood Consumption in Australia: A Nationwide Household Survey

Author

Listed:
  • Lygia Romanach

    (CSIRO Land & Water, Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road, Dutton Park, QLD 4102, Australia)

  • Elisha Frederiks

    (CSIRO Land & Water, Ecosciences Precinct, 41 Boggo Road, Dutton Park, QLD 4102, Australia)

Abstract

A range of energy sources are used by households across the globe, including electricity, gas, solar, and wood. While there is a large body of international research aimed at understanding household energy use in general, very few studies have focused on the specific topic of residential firewood consumption. In Australia, empirical research to investigate and quantify residential firewood consumption is scarce and outdated, despite the importance of such research for better understanding overall household energy costs and carbon emissions. Unlike other power sources, such as electricity, gas and solar, firewood consumption is not systematically monitored or measured in an objective way, thereby making it difficult to obtain accurate data on the amount of firewood consumed in the residential sector. To address this data gap, the current study used survey data from a sample of 4844 households (including 1168 firewood users) to explore what socio-demographic, dwelling-related and behavioural factors were important for predicting the amount of firewood consumed by Australian households. The results revealed that a range of variables—including geographical location, dwelling type, the number of wood-fired appliances per household, and behavioural factors such as the purpose, timing, frequency, and duration of firewood use—were key determinants of residential firewood consumption in Australia, as self-reported by households. Together, these findings underscore the value of measuring not only geographical and location-based factors in household surveys, but also a range of socio-demographic, dwelling-related, and behavioural variables. By doing so, self-report data collected through surveys is likely to better predict the amount of residential firewood consumption reported (or estimated) by households. Overall, this study makes an important and timely contribution to the literature by demonstrating how social science methods such as household surveys can help improve current estimates of residential firewood consumption used to inform government policy, planning, and decision-making for the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Lygia Romanach & Elisha Frederiks, 2021. "Understanding the Key Determinants of Residential Firewood Consumption in Australia: A Nationwide Household Survey," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:20:p:6777-:d:658568
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/20/6777/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/20/6777/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stéphane Couture & Serge Garcia & Arnaud Reynaud, 2009. "Household Energy Choices and Fuelwood Consumption: An Econometric Approach to the French Data," LERNA Working Papers 09.08.284, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    2. Arabatzis, G. & Malesios, Ch., 2011. "An econometric analysis of residential consumption of fuelwood in a mountainous prefecture of Northern Greece," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 8088-8097.
    3. Couture, Stéphane & Garcia, Serge & Reynaud, Arnaud, 2012. "Household energy choices and fuelwood consumption: An econometric approach using French data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1972-1981.
    4. Song, Nianfu & Aguilar, Francisco X. & Shifley, Stephen R. & Goerndt, Michael E., 2012. "Factors affecting wood energy consumption by U.S. households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 389-397.
    5. Reichert, G. & Schmidl, C. & Haslinger, W. & Schwabl, M. & Moser, W. & Aigenbauer, S. & Wöhler, M. & Hochenauer, C., 2016. "Investigation of user behavior and assessment of typical operation mode for different types of firewood room heating appliances in Austria," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 245-254.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eakins, John & Sirr, Gordon & Power, Bernadette, 2023. "Informally sourced solid fuel use: Examining its extent and characteristics of the users in the residential sector in Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    2. Torgrim Log & Anna Marie Gjedrem, 2022. "A Fire Revealing Coastal Norway’s Wildland–Urban Interface Challenges and Possible Low-Cost Sustainable Solutions," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(5), pages 1-24, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaime, Mónica M. & Chávez, Carlos & Gómez, Walter, 2020. "Fuel choices and fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in urban areas of central-southern Chile: The role of prices, income, and the availability of energy sources and technology," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. Curtis, John & Tovar, Miguel Angel & Grilli, Gianluca, 2020. "Access to and consumption of natural gas: Spatial and socio-demographic drivers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    3. Curtis, John & McCoy, Daire & Aravena, Claudia, 2018. "Heating system upgrades: The role of knowledge, socio-demographics, building attributes and energy infrastructure," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 183-196.
    4. Eakins, John & Sirr, Gordon & Power, Bernadette, 2023. "Informally sourced solid fuel use: Examining its extent and characteristics of the users in the residential sector in Ireland," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    5. Curtis, John & McCoy, Daire & Aravena Novielli, Claudia, 2017. "Determinants of residential heating system choice: an analysis of Irish households," Papers WP576, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    6. Collins, Matthew & Dempsey, Seraphim & Curtis, John, 2017. "Financial incentives for residential energy efficiency investments in Ireland: Should the status quo be maintained?," Papers WP562, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Damette, Olivier & Delacote, Philippe & Lo, Gaye Del, 2018. "Households energy consumption and transition toward cleaner energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 751-764.
    8. Caurla, Sylvain & Bertrand, Vincent & Delacote, Philippe & Le Cadre, Elodie, 2018. "Heat or power: How to increase the use of energy wood at the lowest cost?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 85-103.
    9. Yang, Xiaojun & Xu, Jintao & Xu, Xiaojie & Yi, Yuanyuan & Hyde, William F., 2020. "Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province, China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    10. Matthew Collins & Seraphim Dempsey & John Curtis, 2018. "Householder Preferences for the Design of an Energy Efficiency Retrofit Subsidy in Ireland," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 145-172.
    11. Karimu, Amin & Mensah, Justice Tei & Adu, George, 2016. "Who Adopts LPG as the Main Cooking Fuel and Why? Empirical Evidence on Ghana Based on National Survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 43-57.
    12. Abubakar Hamid Danlami & Rabiul Islam & Shri Dewi Applanaidu, 2015. "An Analysis of the Determinants of Households Energy Choice: A Search for Conceptual Framework," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 5(1), pages 197-205.
    13. McCoy, Daire & Curtis, John, 2018. "Exploring the spatial and temporal determinants of gas central heating adoption," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 64-86.
    14. Couture, Stéphane & Garcia, Serge & Reynaud, Arnaud, 2012. "Household energy choices and fuelwood consumption: An econometric approach using French data," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1972-1981.
    15. Ortega-Izquierdo, Margarita & Paredes-Salvador, Andrés & Montoya-Rasero, Carlos, 2019. "Analysis of the decision making factors for heating and cooling systems in Spanish households," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 175-185.
    16. Chen, Qiu, 2021. "District or distributed space heating in rural residential sector? Empirical evidence from a discrete choice experiment in South China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PA).
    17. Nogueira, Luiz Augusto Horta & Antonio de Souza, Luiz Gustavo & Cortez, Luís Augusto Barbosa & Leal, Manoel Regis Lima Verde, 2017. "Sustainable and Integrated Bioenergy Assessment for Latin America, Caribbean and Africa (SIByl-LACAf): The path from feasibility to acceptability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 292-308.
    18. Ma, Shaoyue & Xu, Xiangbo & Li, Chang & Zhang, Linxiu & Sun, Mingxing, 2021. "Energy consumption inequality decrease with energy consumption increase: Evidence from rural China at micro scale," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    19. Mohammad Z. Hasan & Ronald A. Ratti, 2015. "Coal Sector Returns and Oil Prices: Developed and Emerging Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 5(2), pages 515-524.
    20. San, Vibol & Spoann, Vin & Ly, Dalin & Chheng, Ngov Veng, 2012. "Fuelwood consumption patterns in Chumriey Mountain, Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 335-346.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:20:p:6777-:d:658568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.