Understanding the Factors Affecting in Per Capita Demand of Water in simple and easy language.
Per capita demand of water
Per capita demand of water is the annual average amount of daily water required by one person and it includes the domestic uses, industrial uses and commercial uses, public uses waste and thefts of water etc.
Factors affecting per capita demand of water
The annual average demand for water considerably varies from different towns or cities. This figure generally ranges between 100 to 360 lpcd for Indian conditions. The variation in per capita water consumption of different cities or towns depend upon various factors which must be thoroughly studied and analysed before fixing the per capita demand for design purposes. These factors are discussed below.
Various Factors which affects per capita demand of water
There are various factor listing below, which affects per capita demand of water.
Size of the city or Town:
The total water demand depends on the size of the population and for the design of the water supply scheme for a given population size following guidelines may be adopted.
Climate condition
At hotter and dry places, per capita demand of water is generally more because more of the bathing, clearing, air cooler and air conditioning at ac are involved. Similarly in extremely cold countries more water may be consumed because to open the tape to avoid freezing of pipes and there may be more leakage from pipe joints since metals contract with cold.
Quality of water supplies
If the quality and test of supplied water is good it will be consumed more water because in that case people will not use other sources such as private hand pumps and it increases the per capita demand of water. Similarly certain industries such as boilers that required standard quality water will not develop their own supplies and will use public supplies provided the supplied water is up to their required standard. In that case per capita demand of water will also increase.
Pressure in the distribution system.
If the pressure of water in the distribution pipes is high and sufficient to make the water recess at third or even 4th story building, per capita water consumption shall be definitely more. Per capita water demand increased because of two reason which is given below-
- The people living is upper storage will use water freely as compared to the case when water is available to them
- The losses and wastage due to leakage are considerably increase if their pressure is high
