Findings
Logistic regressions were performed to determine the ability of independent variables to predict all the water-saving behaviours identified. Using logistic regression is a consequence of water saving behaviours being defined as discrete variables. The estimations and the Nagelkerke R2 values from these models are shown in Table 3. As Table 3 indicates, there is a link between factors considered in this research and water-saving behaviours. Nevertheless, the results indicate that this relationship will depend on the behaviour under study. Thus, as the Nagelkerke R2 values indicate, the strongest ability to predict water-saving behaviour is related to the behaviour “Showering instead of bathing” (0.885). In the same vein, behaviours such as “Turning off the tap while brushing one’s teeth or soaping” or “Thawing food in advance of use” are also highly predicted by independent variables, as the R2 values indicate (0.718 and 0,630, respectively). On
the contrary, “Keeping a bottle of water in the fridge to have cool water” (0.114) and, especially, “Filling the kitchen sink(s) before washing up (0.085) are poorly predicted by the factors under study. Regarding the factors under study, environmental awareness is the most influential factor in water-saving behaviour, given that for all the models the parameter is positive and significant, indicating a direct relationship between environmental awareness of water-saving behaviours. In addition, the results indicate that individuals who are most involved in environmental topics are, in general, more favourable towards water-saving behaviours. However, there are two exceptions in which such involvement is not related to behaviour: “Keeping a bottle of water in the fridge to have cool water” and “Showering instead bathing”. For these two variables, the parameters are not significant. Ecological attitude is not strongly related to much water-saving behaviour. Only for “Recycling water”, “Keeping a bottle of water in the fridge to have cool water”, “(Semi) closing the stopcock to reduce the flow to taps” and “Showering instead bathing”, are the attitudes related to such behaviours. This result seems to confirm Hini et al. (1995) conclusion. These authors found that environmental attitudes’ predictive ability of environmental behaviour was very low. On the other hand, both “Ways of using devices” and the “Availability of water-saving devices” are clearly related to watersaving behaviours