Capturing and analysing heterogeneity in residential greywater reuse preferences using a latent class model

To legally permit greywater reuse as a management strategy, it is necessary to establish allowed uses, as well as guarantee legitimacy, safety and maintain public trust. Cities with previous experience in greywater reuse have reconfigured their regulations according to their own evidence with decentralized water reuse systems. This has allowed them to encourage or restrict certain indoor uses of treated greywater. However, cities starting to use these residential schemes lack the experience to reconfigure their water and sanitation regulation, and thus need “blindly” decide on the type of greywater uses to allow in order to achieve a balance between users’ acceptability and avoiding public health problems.

In this research, we analyse hypothetical situations of greywater reuse based on real evidence related to decentralized water systems. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the heterogeneity of individuals' preferences regarding residential greywater reuse for six intended indoor uses, using stated choice experiments and a latent class model. Hence, we obtain preliminary evidence about the direction that the regulation or pilot tests should take. We use the context of Santiago (Chile) as a reference, where although allowed, greywater reuse is not taking place widely. Our results show that survey respondents can be classified into four classes (enthusiasts, greywater sceptics, appearance conscious and water expenditure conscious), according to the preferences for the different types of indoor greywater reuse and the appearance of the treated greywater. From a policy perspective, our results show differences across classes as a function of socioeconomic characteristics and previous greywater reuse knowledge, as well as wider household characteristics, including the presence of sensitive individuals (under 15 and over 74 years old), number of residents, number of sanitary devices, and location and type of garden.