Investigation of variables that affect the urban water consumption over some districts of Konya city

Nowadays water demand can be defined as the amount of water needed for drinking, garden irrigation, fire control, cleaning and industrial use in urban areas. Water demands are highly variable and are affected by factors such as city size, population characteristics, climate and natural conditions, economic factors, and development level. In addition, water use behavior of people also has a large impact on water consumption. As it is known, the importance of water and the amount of water consumption are increasing day by day due to industrial growth, population growth, technology advancement and living standards. As a consequence of the limited water resources, the design and planning of water systems and the estimation of water demand should be made more carefully and the water resources should be used more efficiently. For this reason, it is very important to examine the factors affecting water demand.In the present study, firstly, the studies on the factors affecting water consumption have been investigated in the literature and then Factor Analysis, Multivariate Linear Regression and Artificial Neural Networks methods have been used on four different neighborhoods with different characteristics of Konya to find the effect of climatic factors on unit water consumption. As a result, it was observed that climate factors were effective for Saraçoğlu Neighborhood, acceptable for Lalebahçe and Gödene Neighborhoods and for Yazır Neighborhood had no effect on water consumption. If a generalization is made, it can be said that other factors other than climate should be investigated for estimation of unit water consumption of existing neighborhoods.