Yarra Valley Water: Analyzing Step 3 Water Usage Trends (2010-2018)

This research proposal examines the water usage patterns of Yarra Valley Water customers who have transitioned to Step 3 usage, consuming over 880 liters per day, between 2010 and 2018. The study analyzes the proportion of tenants versus homeowners in this category, investigates seasonal influences, and explores the impact of demographic and geographic factors on water consumption. The research aims to identify key drivers of high water usage and provide recommendations for water conservation strategies.

Yarra Valley Water
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Contents
Executive summary:........................................................................................................................3
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................4
Literature review:.............................................................................................................................5
Recommendations:..........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9
References:....................................................................................................................................10
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Executive summary:
The research proposal conducted will be discussing the water usage tendency and about the
behavior of the customers that have been entering into step 3 usage from the year 2010 to 2018.
Step 3 Usage means the residents that have been utilizing approximately more than 880 liters of
water per day. The individuals who spend such large amount of water per day have large state
properties including the private gardens, Jacuzzis, swimming pools and other places where a
large amount of water is wasted. The problems of water wastage will be identified by
determining the behavior they possess and the various problem-solving points such as the
proportion of customers that have been entering the step 3 usage will be studied on the basis of
the tenant’s vs the owners of the house.
Yarra Valley Water is the major trade water corporation which has been delivering sewage and
water supply services to around 1.8 million individuals all over the Melbourne. Around 9000 km
of water and sewage mains are controlled and maintained by Yarra Valley Water. The water
corporation was founded in 1995 and purchases water on the bulk scale from the Melbourne
water and then further provides it to the residents. There are around 7000000 residential
customers that have been billed for the usage of water on the quarterly basis and to the major of
the properties they are having their own metres placed which take the readings at least once in
every three months and there is vast differentiation at the time of starting and ending of the
billing period as the readings taken from the residential customers is billed on the basis of the
inclining steps so that they can promote the conservation of water.
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Introduction:
The research proposal will be based on the Yarra Valley Water which is the major water supply
and Sewage Corporation founded in the year 1995 and has been operating in Melbourne. The
water treatment plants by this corporation are based in western or the eastern sewage treatment
plants of Melbourne and other 9 regional treatment plants. The main aims of the project are to
analyze the proportion of the customers that have been entering the step 3 usage of water supply
and possess their own houses. The step 3 usage is the stage where the residents utilize more than
880 liters of water per day and more than approximately 80 kilolitres per quarter.
The problem-solving points of the task are the proportions of the customers that have entered
into the step 3 usage and analyze that whether there is any seasonality effect on the customers.
The way the customers react to the usage of water after entering into the step 3 will be
determined. The analysis of whether the customers will be reducing usage and wastage of water
in next quarter will be done and the trends between the demographic and the geographic factors
and the usage they have will be determined.
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Literature review:
According to Benn (2017), the task is accomplished about the Yarra Valley Water which is the
chief water and sewage service providing corporation in Melbourne. There are plenty of
individuals that have been shifted to the step 3 usage of water supply. For the services there are
certain fixed amounts that are to be paid by the owners of the house for utilising the water source
but the individuals who are leaving as the tenants only pay the amount which is certainly of
water usage and sewer disposal. Due to the difference in the billing of the tenants and the house
owners had led to the difference in the behaviours of the consumers. As per the trends there is
higher consumption of water in the summer season in Melbourne. The reason for having higher
number of consumption in the summer season is due to the individuals that are watering the
gardens and the usage of the water coolers. There are a lot of climate factors that are affecting
the behaviours of the consumers (Benn 2017).
In the words of Farquhar (2016), the material and method that is utilised to know about the
consumers that have been entering the step 3 by the data gathered from the billing of water
which is provided by the Yarra valley water as per which there are almost 7 million records
across all the quarter of 2010 to 2018. The data it gathers in the form of time series and the cross-
sectional series. By watching the data it can be said that 7% of residents were step 3 users in the
year 2010 from which around 90 where the tenants and 10% where the house owners. In the year
2018 around 12% of the users where on the step 3 and 20% of them were the tenants and 80 %
were the house owners from which it can be said that the number of individuals utilising step 3
water which is around more than 880 litres per day had shifted from tenants to the house owners
(Farquhar 2016).
As per King (2018), the number of house owners who have been entering in the step 3 of the
water usage has been increased drastically. As the data of the customers is provided by the Yarra
Valley Water includes the unique ID of the customers due to which they can track the usage of
water done by them in the quarter. As per this the behaviours of consumers is analysed and as
per the analysis the number of individuals utilising step 3 water has been on a constant rise and it
is a term of deep worry. Due to the high basis of the consumption many of the customers may
stick in the step 3 as per the hypothesis. As per the relation between the demographic and
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geographic factors it can be said that the individuals that are having similar kind of habits may
have similar kind of patterns for consuming the water in Melbourne. The number of consumption
of individuals have their own property is high as they have their large gardens, swimming pools,
Jacuzzis and other luxurious habits that lead to higher consumption of water. The patterns
suggest that the summer season leads to higher evaporation of water which leads to higher
watering in gardens and usage of swimming pools that spins the water meter speedily. There are
very much higher proportions of the immigrants from the place where water is available at cheap
rates and they certainly have habit of wasting it on unnecessary situations due to which they have
different behaviour from the individuals that have been leaving in Melbourne (King 2018).
In the words of Rathnayaka, et. al, (2015), the biggest difference in the behaviour of the people
living in Australia and other countries is that the individuals that have been leaving in Australia
have higher tendency of saving water and using it wisely whereas the individuals from other
countries have habit of utilising it on unnecessary places and activities. The residents leaving in
Melbourne have gone through the water conversation message that is passed on to them after the
millennial drought. The water that is utilised in Melbourne is eventually carried out from
different a place which is then further merged into the reservoirs that are holding the supply of
water. The major reservoirs are protected so that there is no pollution of water and it stays clean
and healthy. Before dumping the water into the plant it can be naturally cleaned as it can be
dumped into the reservoir for almost five years (Rathnayaka, et. al, 2015).
As per Binks, et. al, (2016), the chlorine that is added into the water makes sure the residents use
safe water and it is cleaned with no germs inside it. In an average size swimming pool of water
the proportion of chlorine added is less than half a teacup. By the proper laws the fluoride is also
added to the drinking water which assists in keeping the teeth healthy and strong. After filtration
of water in Yarra Valley Water it is then provided to the businesses and other residents in the
Melbourne. The filtration plant is the place where the water is treated and cleared for drinking.
Chlorine is the chemical that is utilised in the water for killing the germs and the other chemical
that is fluoride is added to keep the teeth healthy and strong. There are different methodologies
and outcomes of the research which incorporates of data that is provided by the Yarra Valley
Water and as per the data of this corporation there are almost 7 million residents where the water
is supplied on the regular basis and the same amount of water is further treated for reuse. The
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area of undertakings for Yarra Valley Water is to provide great quality of water for which they
need to provide the water that is used to meet all the demands of the drinking water and the
different standards of health that are set up by the department of health (Binks, et. al, 2016).
According to Brotchie, et. al., (2016), the corporation also need to manage the compliance which
is allied with the recycled water. The other areas of the undertaking by the corporation
incorporate of reticulated water reliability for which they accomplish the number of planned and
other unplanned water supply disruptions. The distribution of water pipe dependability can be
upgraded and the number of leaks and the bursts can be reduced. The blockages in sewer are to
manage the number of planned and unplanned sewer disruptions. Yarra Valley Water also needs
to meet the customer requirements in relation to the times of responses for the supply of water at
the time of disruptions (Brotchie, et. al, 2016).
As per Hambly, et. al., (2015), the corporation also needs to make sure that the capacity of the
system meets the standards of the environment that are defined by the Environment Protection
Authority Victoria (EPAV). As per the research the customer satisfaction of residential
customers was 86%, non-residential customers had satisfaction of 74%, the satisfaction of
residential customers with the service interactions was around 88% and of the non-residential
was of 76%. The surveys also suggest that majority of residents in Melbourne agree that Yarra
Valley Water provides with reliable service of water (Hambly, et. al, 2015).
In the words of Zubaidi, et. al., (2018), the corporation has higher standard of corporate
governance and has a board which is setting the strategic decisions, developing the goals of
management and monitoring the performance of the management. The language that has been
used for the analysis methodology is of R-project according to which the steps that have been
dealing with the data and the visualisations are developed with the assistance of R. As per the
format the data needs to be first processed in the form of its purposes. The visualisation data can
be analysed for the distribution in the form of distribution for the usage of volume for the higher
customers which are visually in the part. The distributions that are occurred in the Yarra Valley
Water can be understood with the assistance of the histograms. As per the histograms there is
huge variance in the terms of tenants and the owners of the house. In the quarter higher number
of individuals where getting in the step 3 (Zubaidi, et. al., 2018).
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Recommendations:
After viewing the present scenario of water scarcity in Melbourne it can be said that there is a
huge need for steps to conserve the water. Yarra Valley Water has been setting up their own
meters for the billing purpose so that they can record the number of water used by the residents it
leads to the huge difference as the house owners are paying a fixed amount for the usage of water
and the tenants are paying specifically only for the water and sewage use. The majority of the
country is reliant on the dams for their water sources so they can take necessary steps to save
water such as educating the immigrants to save water and build certain kind of limitations based
on the usage of water depending on the size of the property. There are various water regulations
that Melbourne can apply such as on sprinklers and irrigation, hand watering gardens, swimming
pools, car washing and other activities that are wasting the water. As due to the continuous
droughts that have been taking place in Melbourne there are various kinds of techniques and
steps that other places can learn from Australia.
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Conclusion:
Thus, from the task completed above it can be concluded that there is a higher number of
individuals in Melbourne that have been shifting from step 2 to step 3 in the terms of utilizing
water. The number of individuals that are using higher water has increased from tenants to the
house owners radically. There are many individuals in Melbourne who are migrating from
another place where the service of water is cheap and the water is available in bulk quantity.
The migrants are certainly not aware of the lower number of water in Melbourne which shows
the higher number of change in the behavior of the customers of Yarra Valley Water. The
residents who are living in Melbourne for a long time know about the scarcity of water and they
take necessary steps to conserve it. In the literature review above the proper number of ratios are
provided to tell about the number of people utilizing step 3 water and the reasons for their
shifting’s. The recommendations have also been provided to conserve the water and there are
steps that Yarra Valley Water has already taken for conserving the water sources.
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References:
 Benn, S. (2017). Yarra Valley Water: double-loop learning and sustainability. The
Business & Management Collection.
 Binks, A. N., Kenway, S. J., Lant, P. A., & Head, B. W. (2016). Understanding
Australian household water-related energy use and identifying physical and human
characteristics of major end uses. Journal of Cleaner Production, 135, 892-906.
 Brotchie, R., Considine, R., Finlayson, G., Whiton, T., & Williams, K. (2016). Integrated
Water Management: Does it Stack Up? Lessons from a review of 15 IWM studies
undertaken in Melbourne, Australia. Proceedings of the Water Environment
Federation, 2016(13), 5816-5833.
 Farquhar, A. (2016). When High Performance Flows: How Yarra Valley Water made it
to the global stage. Waste+ Water Management Australia, 43(3), 34.
 Hambly, A. C., Henderson, R. K., Baker, A., Stuetz, R. M., & Khan, S. J. (2015).
Application of Portable Fluorescence Spectrophotometry for Integrity Testing of
Recycled Water Dual Distribution Systems. Applied spectroscopy, 69(1), 124-129.
 King, A. (2018). New age metering. Plumbing Connection, (Autumn 2018), 42.
 Rathnayaka, K., Malano, H., Maheepala, S., George, B., Nawarathna, B., Arora, M., &
Roberts, P. (2015). Seasonal demand dynamics of residential water end-uses. Water, 7(1),
202-216.
 Zubaidi, S. L., Dooley, J., Alkhaddar, R. M., Abdellatif, M., Al-Bugharbee, H., &
Ortega-Martorell, S. (2018). A Novel approach for predicting monthly water demand by
combining singular spectrum analysis with neural networks. Journal of Hydrology, 561,
136-145.
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