Water Demand in the Built Environment: Multi-Scale Characterization, Drivers, Impacts, and the Water-Energy Nexus

Water demand in the built environment is under increasing pressure from climate change, urbanization, population growth, and sustainability targets. Understanding water demand in residential and non-residential buildings, and how it changes across different spatial and temporal scales, is important for improving the efficiency and sustainability of urban water systems. Water demand is driven by a combination of technological, behavioural, socio-economic, and environmental factors. These factors shape demand patterns and can affect network performance, peak demand conditions, and the energy required for water supply and heating. A better understanding of water demand can also support more accurate estimation of water losses, helping utilities improve system management.

Recent advances in monitoring technologies and data collection have made it possible to analyse water demand in even greater detail, from entire cities, districts, and buildings up to individual end uses. At the same time, there is growing interest in the links between water demand and other resources, particularly energy. Water abstraction, treatment, distribution, and heating all require energy, making the relationship between water and energy an important area of research for reducing environmental impacts.

This Research Topic focuses on water demand in the built environment and on the factors that drive water demand across different scales. It aims to improve understanding of demand patterns, user behaviour, and demand dynamics in both residential and non-residential settings, as well as their effects on water systems and energy requirements. Contributions exploring the links between water demand, energy use, and resource efficiency in the built environment are welcome.

The Research Topic welcomes original research articles, reviews and other contributions on water demand, its drivers, its impacts on the built environment, and its relationship with energy and other resource systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: (1) water-demand characterization across different spatial and temporal scales, from urban systems to buildings and end uses; (2) profiling of residential and non-residential users, activities, and demand patterns; (3) approaches and models for describing, disaggregating, and forecasting water-demand profiles, including uncertainty quantification in demand estimation and prediction; (4) analysis of water-demand drivers, including demographic, socio-economic, climatic, technological, and geographic factors; (5) the water-energy nexus associated with residential and non-residential water demand, including hot water demand, energy requirements, and environmental impacts; (6) effects of user behaviour, demand variability, and demand dynamics on water distribution systems, system stress, efficiency, and sustainability.

Contributions combining engineering, environmental sciences, urban studies, behavioural sciences, and socio-technical perspectives are particularly encouraged.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Community Case Study
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Water Demand, Built Environment, Multi-Scale Characterization, Water-Energy Nexus, Residential And Non-Residential Users, End-Use Disaggregation, Demand Drivers, Demand Forecasting, User Behaviour, Water Distribution Systems

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.