Promoting sustainable residential water use: a Portuguese case study in ownership and regulation

This article reports a survey of consumers of water in the Portuguese autonomous region of Madeira. The survey was designed to establish the extent to which bills for that service inform users about critical aspects of the supply and encourage them to behave in environmentally-friendly ways. The evidence collected suggests that the bills lack this educational quality, suggesting that they should be redesigned to have that effect. The results constitute a wake-up call for regulators in this and other service industries: focusing on the design of bills may well have very positive effects in the development of more environmentally-friendly consumption, behaviour, and attitudes. This recognises the need for communities to own the water scarcity problem by responding in ways that ensure sustainable levels of water consumption.