Building an Integrated Water–Land Use Database for Defining Benchmarks, Conservation Targets, and User Clusters

Abstract

Water utilities have large amounts of data at their disposal, which are seldom being used to their full potential. Integrating water billing records with land-use and demographic data organizes information and makes inherent correlations easier to understand, facilitating communication to stakeholders. This data was integrated for three Ontario (Canada) municipalities, Barrie, Guelph, and London. A summary tool was created, with proposed metrics and charts, that facilitates comparisons between cities, definition of benchmarks, and identification of targets for conservation. More than 60% of consumption in these cities is residential, and mostly lies below the Ontario average of