“In 2008/09 the average person in Perth used around 106 kilo-litres of scheme water per year in the home”

Australia is the worlds driest inhabited continents. It should therefore come as no surprise that experts are concerned about how Australia look’s after its water. Lower than average rainfall has contributed to a sharp drop in stream flows into dams. This has resulted in substantial decrease in the average yield from dams and an increase in the reliance on groundwater and desalinated water supplies. Western Australia’s population is growing, with Perth and Mandurah expected to have in the order of 3.3 million people by 2060. The amount of scheme water an average person in Perth uses each year has reduced substantially from 128 kilo-litres in 2000/01 to 106 kilo-litres in 2008/09 for the residential sector. Even with this decrease, Perth remains one of the highest water using cities in Australia. Collectively households still have the greatest potential to make a significant contribution to reducing water use, as they are by far the highest users of water from the Integrated Water Supply Scheme (IWSS). In 2008/09 the average person in Perth uses around 106 kilo-litres of scheme water per year in the home. Of this 52% was used indoors, 44% was used outdoors and 4% was lost through private plumbing leaks. Over half of all water use is consumed indoors, with nearly half of this being consumed in the shower.

The government has outlined many obvious measures by which households can reduce discretionary indoor water wise and utilise water saving appliances and fixtures. For example, to reduce water used in showering consumers are typically encourages to:• Install a water efficient shower-head•Take shorter showers• Install a shower timer•Use a bucket to collect water while waiting for the shower to warm upHuman behaviour is usually complex and the consequence of the multiple factors influencing it, with many factors not easily controlled. Existing3 attempts to promote water conservation have been loosely based around two broad categorisations of human behaviour;•The rational-economic model, also known as the rational choice model. This ‘model’ is based on the

assumption that, to influence conservation decisions, a water consumer requires only information relating to financial and performance advantages of alternative choices to enable them to act accordingly. This assumes users are aware of the relevant information (or are willing to seek it) and are aware of the consequential impacts of their choices.

•The attitude-behaviour model, which is based around the idea that an individual's behaviour is determined by their attitudes towards a particular issue, such as water conservation, and that their behaviours can be changed by influencing their attitudes. This model, more often, assumes that individuals may not be aware of the psychological factors at play in their decisions.

48%

18%

14%

11%7% 2%

Shower & BathToiletWashing MachineTapsEvaporative Air ConditioningDishwasher

52%

44%

4%

Indoor UseOutdoor UsePrivate Plumbing Leaks

Another way of understanding and influencing water conservation is to focus on the internal and external influences that need to be taken into account. •Approaches which model behaviour as a function of processes

and characteristics which are internal to the individual focus on attitudes, values habits and personal norms. Other important internal influences are psychological motivations, differing needs for status and identity and emotions

•Approaches which study behaviour as a function of processes and characteristics external to the individual focus on factors such as fiscal and regulatory incentives, institutional constraints and social practices. Important external influences are the rewards and penalties related to the behaviour, the behaviours and attitudes of others, the prevailing social norms, and positive or negative experiences related to the behaviour.

Defined in this way, the environmental change is at heart one of understanding how meanings and practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience fall into the real, of the taken for granted, and how they change. In order to do this we need to understand cleanliness and the various cultural connotations and practices that surround it. Focusing only on the discourse of bathing, that is on explicit documented themes of the last hundred and fifty years afford contrasting justifications in terms of:• social significance (is bathing a marker of elite status or does it

signify membership of “ordinary” society)• therapeutic or preventative qualities (is bathing about working

with nature or about keeping nature at bay), and•positioning as pleasure or duty.Habits do not necessarily correspond to dominant rhetorics but in trying to figure out how routines have changed it is as well to take note of the terms in which they are legitimised. The above points suggest that at any point in time, routines and habits are (loosely) held in place by a distinctive combination of theories and justificatory concepts. There is an emphasis on image and appearance, on the curative and therapeutic properties of invigoration and on a distinctive blending of pleasure and duty. Some of the earliest devices, such as the hand pumped English Regency Shower of 1810, were status items in their own right, but not strongly associated with cleanliness. Though of little use in forecasting the future, these insights suggest that bathing habits do not simply mirror contemporary theories of hygiene or social order.

What matters is how the constituent elements of discourse operate together, and how individuals position their own routines in terms of a range of rationales, these being arguments that justify and at the same time provide a guide for practice. It is already evident that the terminology of cleanliness is misleading in that there is more to bathing than the removal of dirt. In order to achieve an appropriately showered body people use key appliances in combination and in particular ways. In understanding change we therefore need to understand how clusters of practice evolve and how they are held together by concepts of service, that is by organising principles and engrained habits defining what should be done, when it should be done and how it should be done.

Proposal