Potential Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic through Changes in Outbound Tourism on Water Demand: The Case of Liège (Belgium)

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many countries closing their borders, and numerous people spending their holidays at home instead of traveling abroad. This sudden reduction in travel activities, and other ‘new normals’, might have influenced people’s water usage. Hence, using Liège as a case study, this study aims to address the potential effect of outbound tourism on water consumption and how the current situation might affect the total water demand. Statistical models were developed and validated using the total daily volume of 23 municipalities in the Liège conurbation, the monthly total n... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Nguyen Bich-Ngoc
Jacques Teller
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
Reihe/Periodikum: Water, Vol 12, Iss 2820, p 2820 (2020)
Verlag/Hrsg.: MDPI AG
Schlagwörter: portable water demand / outbound tourism / climate / Liège / COVID-19 / Hydraulic engineering / TC1-978 / Water supply for domestic and industrial purposes / TD201-500
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29388307
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://doi.org/10.3390/w12102820

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many countries closing their borders, and numerous people spending their holidays at home instead of traveling abroad. This sudden reduction in travel activities, and other ‘new normals’, might have influenced people’s water usage. Hence, using Liège as a case study, this study aims to address the potential effect of outbound tourism on water consumption and how the current situation might affect the total water demand. Statistical models were developed and validated using the total daily volume of 23 municipalities in the Liège conurbation, the monthly total number of outbound trips, and other meteorological data. Results suggest significantly lower water demand in the months with high numbers of outbound travel activities. Though the projected risk of increased water needs due to fewer people traveling is moderate, the threat becomes much higher during long periods of dry and hot weather.