Helena Krantz

Water Systems Meeting Everyday Life: A Conceptual Model of Household Use of Urban Water and Sanitation Systems

The urban water and sanitation system has been questioned from various sustainability perspectives but, like other large technical systems, it is highly path dependent and resistant to change. The response to environmental demands is typically to optimize existing technology and procedures, adding new system-compatible technology, and to introduce policy instruments to improve water use by households. However, these policy instruments are general measures that touch on everyday life in various household contexts. Despite the geographical extension of water and sanitation networks, any policy instrument or systemic change will be interpreted and understood in local contexts, and users in households act locally. Nevertheless, conceptual discussion of the interconnectedness of system design, household context, and user routines is lacking. This article aims to provide a conceptual model combining systems and everyday-life views in the same framework. The model is applied to the concrete Swedish example of phosphorous recycling from wastewater.