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As water scarcity becomes the new norm in the Western United States, states such as California have increased their efforts to improve water resilience. Achieving water security under climate change, population growth, and urbanization requires an integrated multi-sectoral approach, where adaptation strategies combine supply and demand management interventions. Yet, most studies consider supply-side and demand-side management strategies separately. Water conservation efforts are mainly driven by policy requirements and publicly available data to assess the effectiveness of demand- and supply-side management policies is often hard to find and unstructured. Here we present CaRDS - the statewide California Residential water Demand and Supply open dataset. CaRDS encompasses nine years (2013-2021) of monthly water supply and demand time series for 404 water suppliers in California, USA, compiled from different open-access data sources. Access to detailed temporal and spatial water supply operations and demands at the state-level can be useful to researchers and practitioners to realize applications such as evaluating the effectiveness of water conservation policies and discovering regional differences in water resilience measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and urbanization challenge utilities' pursuit of water security worldwide. While water utilities are directly impacted by climate change, their operations also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Digital technologies have proven effective in improving utilities' operations, leading to a more sustainable urban water cycle. However, the global progress of digital water transformation remains largely understudied. Here, we present the results of an online survey involving 64 utilities from 28 countries investigating the impacts of digital transformation on the water utility sector, its drivers, and key-enabling technologies. We found that the water distribution system is the entry point to further adoption of digital technologies in the whole urban water cycle. Furthermore, technology adoption is driven primarily by economic benefits, followed by government regulation and hydroclimatic factors. Starting from the survey results, we point out avenues for further research targeting a better understanding of the influence of regulation, corporate mindset, and consumer involvement for successful digital transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumption-based feedback has been demonstrated to encourage water conservation behaviors. Smart meters and digital solutions can support customized feedback and reinforce behavioral change. Yet, most of the studies documenting water conservation effects induced by feedback and smart meter data visualization evaluate them in short-term experimental trials only. Here we show that water conservation behaviors promoted by smart meter-based consumption feedback and digital user engagement interventions might persist in the long term. We developed an analysis of 334 households in Valencia, Spain. We find that approximately 47% of the households engaged in our water conservation program achieved a long-term 8% reduction of volumetric water consumption, compared with pre-treatment observations. Water conservation behaviors persisted more than two years after the beginning of the program, especially for the households receiving sub-daily smart meter information. Our results provide empirical evidence that smart meter-based water consumption feedback and digital user engagement can effectively promote durable conservation behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]