Integration of supply and demand for water in central Illinois urban areas. Research report

Water demand functions were estimated using two sets of data for Central Illinois -- community-wide data and household data. The community-wide data consist of total residential consumption for each of four pre-selected medium-sized cities in Central Illinois. The household data consist of residents from five cities who responded to a mail survey. The study investigates comparability of parameter estimates from the two approaches. If the parameter estimates are comparable, it would suggest water demand estimates need not require costly and time-consuming household surveys. Estimates of price elasticity are negative and less than unitary based on the two data sets used. The estimated price elasticity based on community-wide data is -.037, while using household data estimated price elasticities are in the range from -.14 to -.16. The reasons for these differences are not immediately apparent and warrant further investigation.