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Efficient water management in building: an approach to promote sustainable building construction in India.

Chawla, Vishakha

Authors



Contributors

Amar Bennadji
Supervisor

Abstract

The growing concerns surrounding water scarcity have spiked an interest in embodied water (EW) studies globally. The EW of a building is the sum of the amount of water needed to manufacture all the building materials throughout their supply chain (indirect embodied water (IEW)), plus the amount of water needed for the building construction (direct embodied water (DEW)). For a building with an operational period of fifty years, this EW can constitute almost 35% of the total building water footprint. India is currently under an urban boom that has resulted in an increased demand for residential building construction projects. The growing water scarcity within the country and the huge contribution of EW in the total building water footprint, suggests the need for EW management in the country. This study thus aims at developing a framework for EW management to promote sustainable building construction in India. To achieve the research aim, this study adopts a sequential explanatory multiphase mixed method research design, and uses case studies, archival search, online questionnaires and semi-structured interviews as its research strategy. Reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings with clay masonry walls are the most common type of residential building construction in India, constituting 45% of the residential building stock, and are selected as case study buildings for analysis. Two case study buildings were analysed to determine the commonly used construction materials and construction activities undertaken for their construction. These materials and activities were further analysed to determine their embodied water coefficient (EWC) which is the amount of water needed for their manufacturing and execution respectively. These EWC values were used to calculate the EW of the case study buildings to be in the range of 0.32-0.35kL/m2. Moreover, an analysis of the IEW and embodied carbon (EC) of these case study buildings revealed that both the EW and EC need to be considered when selecting construction materials to aid in the selection of materials with the lowest environmental impact. An online questionnaire conducted with construction professionals working in India revealed that 45.7% construction sites in India meter their water consumption to monitor their usage as they have to pay to purchase this water. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with construction professionals and construction material manufacturers revealed that there is a lack of government regulations for EW management, and - where they exist - the company faces many challenges for its implementation. The proposed framework created for EW management thus focuses on minimising the challenges for the implementation of government regulations, creation of benchmarks for optimum water consumption and creation of awareness among people regarding water management. The findings of this research have many contributions in practice and theory. The development of optimum water consuming benchmarks and the proposed framework can aid in water management on construction sites and material manufacturing plants during their planning and operation stages. Moreover, this research contributes to theory by developing a methodology for EW measurement that has previously been adopted globally but not in India.

Citation

CHAWLA, V. 2025. Efficient water management in building: an approach to promote sustainable building construction in India. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis. Hosted on OpenAIR [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2795489

Thesis Type Thesis
Deposit Date Apr 17, 2025
Publicly Available Date Apr 17, 2025
DOI https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2795489
Keywords Buildings; Construction; Embodied water; Embodied water coefficient; Water consumption; Sustainability; Materials manufacturing; India
Public URL https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2795489
Award Date Jan 31, 2025

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