Abstract:
An increase in tourism in coastal regions and the saltwater intrusion problem in the aquifers, which will cause the closure of boreholes used to water gardens, create a pressure over the water supply of the region in study. This situation, along with climate change, makes it challenging to envisage mean and long term consumption scenarios. This study is aimed at characterizing, modeling and forecasting the garden watering demand in a coastal touristic region. This is possible due to the particular situation where the lots to study have two water meters: one to measure indoor water use and another to measure outdoor water use. We apply a clustering algorithm to group the customers by similarity of consumption pattern. For each cluster, we propose a generalized additive model. Furthermore, we test a method to disaggregate the total water use into indoor and outdoor use.