Changing shower and toilet habits could help close England's five billion-liter water gap, research finds

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Changing how people shower, report leaks and flush toilets could help close England's projected five billion liter daily water shortfall—but only if the water sector builds the evidence base to make it work, according to a new report led by the University of Surrey. The report is published to coincide with World Water Day on Sunday, March 22.

The report, titled "Promoting domestic water efficiency via behaviour change," draws on input from more than 100 professionals across 60 organizations in the UK water sector, gathered between October 2024 and April 2025. It was co-authored with researchers from Swansea University, the University of Bristol and the University of Portsmouth.

England currently uses an estimated 135 to 150 liters of water per person each day. Smart metering—the main tool in the government's demand-reduction strategy—is projected to save around 450 million liters by 2050. According to the Environment Agency's national framework, 60% of the projected deficit must be recovered through demand management, and researchers believe that means changing behavior at home.

Professor Benjamin Gardner, lead author of the report and Director of the Habit Application and Theory group at the University of Surrey, said,
"The water sector knows that behavior change matters, but it needs to do more to connect with what we know about how people use water.

"Most initiatives so far have focused on increasing motivation to save water. That approach has its limits—particularly when the behaviors in question are habitual. People do not consciously decide how long to shower, for example. They simply do it, the same way, every day. Telling people how many liters of water they are using is unlikely to change that."

Sector professionals rated reporting or fixing in-home leaks, showering and flushing toilets as the three most important behavior change targets. Showering typically uses between 6 and 15 liters per minute, and a quarter of all drinking water used in UK homes is used to flush toilets. Four of the six highest-priority behaviors identified were bathroom-based.

The report found a significant tension—sector professionals ranked showering and toilet-flushing as critical targets yet placed relatively low value on understanding why people shower or flush. The report argues this is the wrong order of priorities—effective behavior change depends on understanding what drives a behavior before attempting to change it. Many water-use habits are automatic and persist even when people want to act differently, because routine, distraction and fatigue prevent conscious adjustment.

Dr. Pablo Pereira-Doel, co-author of the study and Director of the Human Insights Lab at the University of Surrey, said, "We know from our own research that real-time feedback during a shower, delivered at the moment the behavior is happening, can meaningfully reduce how long people spend under the water.

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"That kind of intervention works precisely because it does not rely on people remembering to act differently. It meets them in the moment. What this report shows is that the sector needs to invest in understanding those moments far more systematically, across all the behaviors that matter, before it can design solutions that will actually stick."

The research also identifies a structural problem—many water companies have conducted relevant behavior change research but are not sharing findings, largely for commercial reasons. The authors argue that standardized behavioral science tools could allow the sector to share insights without disclosing commercially sensitive details.

The report makes five recommendations:

• Water sector organizations should work directly with behavioral scientists
• The sector should invest in understanding how people use water, to develop better ways to try to change it
• Water-reduction initiatives should focus on disrupting habits rather than simply educating people about how much water they use
• Knowledge on how to save water should be shared more actively across organizations
• Behavior change should be treated as just one approach among several, alongside structural and technological solutions.

The report is published by the University of Surrey's Institute for Sustainability.

More information

Report: Promoting domestic water efficiency via behaviour change (2026)

Key concepts

real-time monitoring and reportingpublic supply water useresource supply and demandwater resource management

Provided by University of Surrey