Towards sustainable communities: Socioeconomic determinants of domestic water consumption in Surakarta City, Indonesia

Universitas Sebelas Maret, Jl. Ir. Sutami 36 A Surakarta

^* Corresponding author: paramitarahayu@staff.uns.ac.id

Abstract

The gap in water consumption among urban households remains obvious in most cities in Indonesia. It is particularly the case for high-density urban areas. Dense urban areas and limited availability of water resource position water as a contested resource. Regarding water as a contested resource, this paper aims to identify the socioeconomic determinants influencing levels of water consumption in the urbanized medium-sized city, using the case of Surakarta City. Data were collected by using proportional random sampling. Valid respondents are 356 households out of 400 respondents. Respondents were proportioned according to served and not served by networked water PDAM. The data are analyzed by using multiple regression. The result shows that, with 95 percent significance level, overall, age of head of household, total monthly income, housing type, the number of water source utilized by every household, total number of people in every household, and total person work in every household have simultaneously become factors determining water consumption of households in Surakarta. The socioeconomic variables are able to explain 16 percent of the whole factors determining household water consumption in Surakarta City. Even though many factors remain unexplained, this study reveals several important factors that often cause the marginalization of certain urban communities from appropriate domestic water in a rapidly growing secondary city.