Residents’ preferences for recycled stormwater treatment options and the influence of length of residence on their willingness to use treated stormwater for residential purposes

This study explored residents' preferences for stormwater treatment options and their willingness to use treated stormwater for residential purposes. The exploration was conducted through a survey with 669 urban residents in Taiyuan, China, where the historical, social, and cultural factors are largely different from those in western countries, in which most existing studies in the field were carried out. This study makes theoretical and practical contributions by for the first-time introducing length of residence to the factor group that affects residents' willingness to use treated stormwater and finding it as a useful factor to predict community attitudes. Length of residence demonstrated significantly positive impacts on residents' attitudes to using recycled stormwater for residential purposes. It provides a new angle of view to explore the possible influencing factors and adds to the richness of the relationship between socio-demographic variables and community's willingness to use and hence, plays a role in segmenting and profiling the potential consumers of recycled stormwater. Further, it was found that respondents reacted positively to using treated stormwater for residential purposes to alleviate the pressure of fresh water supply. For uses that have limited human contact, the lowest level of treatment (requiring the lowest level of infrastructure investment) would serve the purpose well. On the other hand, for uses that have close human contact, respondents preferred the highest level of treatment (requiring the highest level of infrastructure investment). The findings therefore have important implications to decision-making about the input and scale of infrastructure investment for stormwater recycling schemes.