Watercity: Triggering Residential Water Conservation Through Social Persuasive Technology

In this paper we present WaterCity, a web-based social network application, aiming to change the attitudes and practices of urban communities of residential consumers towards pro-environmental behavior with respect to water use. WaterCity leverages the power of persuasive strategies when combined with social networking applications, with the aim to induce user behavioral change with respect to water conservation. Thought WaterCity, which can be seen as an aggregator of social motivation and other behavioral factors into an easily accessible platform, households can receive information and feedback about their water consumption, compare their consumption to that of similar others and set and monitor water reduction goals. WaterCity will be evaluated in terms of usability and potential towards behavioral change in the context of the WatERP project at two European cities: Karlsruhe and Barcelona.