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Does anybody give a dam? The importance of public awareness for urban water conservation during drought

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  • Aisbett, Emma
  • Steinhauser, Ralf

Abstract

Demand management has been of interest in dry climates such as Australia, Spain and the Western United States for decades. It is particularly important to understand policy options during drought conditions, as drought periods have a disproportionate effect on supply infrastructure decisions. While water‐conservation campaigns aimed at inducing voluntary consumption reductions are almost universally employed by water managers in times of supply constraint, voluntary measures are generally dismissed in the economics literature as ineffective. We argue that the robust positive correlation between dam levels and consumption after controlling for policy changes suggests that there is a significant component of voluntary conservation. Furthermore, omitting dam levels from regressions may bias estimated impacts of policy changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Aisbett, Emma & Steinhauser, Ralf, 2011. "Does anybody give a dam? The importance of public awareness for urban water conservation during drought," Research Reports 107850, Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:eerhrr:107850
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.107850
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Emma Aisbett & Ralf Steinhauser, 2014. "Maintaining the Common Pool: Voluntary Water Conservation in Response to Varying Scarcity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(2), pages 167-185, October.
    2. Emma Aisbett & Ralf Steinhauser, 2011. "Maintaining the Common Pool: Voluntary Water Conservation in Response to Increasing Scarcity," Crawford School Research Papers 1111, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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