Domestic Metered Public Water Consumption 2021

Statistician's Comment

Linh Nolan, Statistician in the Environment and Climate Division of the Central Statistics Office (CSO), said:

"The average monthly consumption of water per meter per day in 2021 was 375 litres. This was 1% lower than the 2020 figure of 379 litres but 6% higher than the 2019 figure of 355 litres (see Table A and Figure 1).

In 2021, the average consumption per month was highest in June at 393 litres per meter per day (see Table 1). In comparison, the highest average consumption in 2020 was in May at 418 litres per meter per day. This was likely due to more people working from home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The lowest average consumption per month in 2021 was in November at 357 litres per meter per day.

The highest decile, or top 10% of metered households by usage, accounted for 34% of total water consumption and had an average consumption of 1,289 litres per meter per day in 2021 (see Figure 2 and Table 2). The average for this decile has decreased by 22% from 1,652 litres per meter per day in 2015.

Median Consumption

The median, or mid-point, consumption in 2021 of 280 litres of water per meter per day was 1% lower than in 2020 but 9% higher than in 2019 (see Table A and Figure 1). Similar to the trend for average consumption, the monthly median was lowest in November at 262 litres per meter per day and highest in June at 297 litres per meter per day (see Table 1). Median consumption reflects typical levels of consumption more than average consumption as the median is less affected by meters with very high levels of water consumption due to leaks.

County Analysis

Table 3A shows the average monthly consumption of water per meter per day by county. Donegal had the lowest average consumption in 2021 at 330 litres compared with Longford which had the highest annual average of 430 litres. The corresponding medians are given in Table 3B. Meath had the highest median consumption in 2021 with 321 litres per meter per day while Leitrim had the lowest at 238 litres per meter per day.

The average daily consumption for Longford in 2021 was the highest for any county at 430 litres per meter per day. The corresponding median was 271 litres per meter per day. The difference between the average and median for Longford was 159 litres which was the highest difference for any county (see Figure 3). The next highest differences were in Leitrim at 145 litres and in Roscommon at 141 litres. Such high differences may be due to leaks between the meter and the property or could be due to the inclusion of mixed residential and non-residential consumption.

Table 4A shows the average monthly consumption of water per meter per day by Dublin postal district. Dublin 20 had the lowest average consumption at 299 litres per meter per day in 2021. Median consumption rates for the Dublin postal districts are provided in Table 4B.

Table 5A shows the annual average consumption for 2016 to 2021. All counties had a higher average consumption in 2020 and 2021 compared with 2019. Table 6A shows that nearly all Dublin postal districts used more water on average in 2020 and 2021 than in 2019."