PROTECT Postdoctoral fellow Dr. Xue Yu published a paper on “Sociodemographic patterns of household water-use costs in Puerto Rico” in Science of The Total Environment. The variability of household water-use costs across different sociodemographic groups in Puerto Rico was evaluated using census microdata from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Through multivariate analyses such as multiple linear regression and factor analysis, the study reveals that the high water-use household in Puerto Rico tends to be that of renters, people who live in larger or older buildings, people living in metro areas, or those with higher education level and higher income. The findings will help decision makers to plan holistic and integrated water management to achieve water sustainability.
Spatial distribution of the Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMAs) in Puerto Rico (plot a; 30 PUMAs), the average household water-use cost of each PUMA in year 2000 (plot b) and year 2010 (plot c). Note that due to the high population densities, the municipal of Bayamón is divided into 2 PUMAs (00801, 00802) and San Juan into 4 PUMAs (01001–01004).