Households' pro-environmental habits and investments in water and energy consumption: determinants and relationships.

Economic instruments have received a lot of attention in the literature dealing with water and energy demand management. However factors driving households' behaviour/habits and investment in water-saving and energy-saving equipment have been seldom studied. The main purpose of this article is to contribute to this literature by analysing the main determinants of a set of households' conservation habits and pro-environmental investment decisions.

Affordability of residential water tariffs: alternative measurement and explanatory factors in southern Spain.

Using information on a basic or "lifeline" level of domestic water use obtained from a water demand function based on a Stone-Geary utility function, a minimum water threshold of 128 m(3) per household per year was estimated in a sample of municipalities in Southern Spain. As a second objective, water affordability indexes were then calculated that relate the cost of such lifeline to average municipal income levels. The analysis of the factors behind the differences in that ratio across Andalusian municipalities shows that the relative cost of purchasing the lifeline appears inversely related to average income levels, revealing an element of regressivity in the component of water tariffs affecting the least superfluous part of the household's consumption.