Water policy beliefs and preferences

Abstract

Christchurch's artesian aquifers, which supply the city's domestic, commercial and industrial water requirements, face a number of threats. Implementation of a strong domestic water conservation policy would be an important and effective way of protecting the aquifers from those threats. A strong policy is likely to be implemented only if the city council believes it is politically acceptable. Political acceptability is influenced by public support for any policy, and the public's support for policies is influenced by their beliefs about the implications of policies and about the resource itself. Methods in this research included focus groups and a postal survey to identify and measure Christchurch citizens' beliefs about policies and the water resource and how those beliefs influence policy preference. Factors found to influence preferences were attitudes towards policies, and beliefs about: ability to comply with policies, policy enforceability, policy effectiveness without education programmes, and about the capacity of the resource to meet the city's needs twenty years from now. The most preferred policy was water use restrictions, despite restrictions having the least effect at reducing water consumption, while more effective market-based policies were least preferred. Water policy managers should be amongst those people interested in the findings of this research. The model used in this study, the 'Theory of Planned Behaviour,' is useful for policy makers because, by measuring people's beliefs about a resource and policies for managing that resource, it can explain why people would, or would not, vote for or intend to vote for policies.