Behaviour Theories to Understand Perception of Public Towards Acceptance of Recycled Wastewater

To address global water scarcity, recycling of wastewater for direct potable applications is one of the promising strategies. However, the public reluctance towards the potable recycled water has been a major hurdle in successful implementation of the reclamation projects. It is equally crucial to understand how public make choices about their behaviour towards recycled water. This chapter explains various factors that are responsible for the public reluctance of recycled water and proposes various theories from psychology that can be applicable in modelling the human behaviour towards recycled water. The background of these theories along with their relevance to recycled water has been discussed in this chapter. Based on the literature survey, only theory of planned behaviour has been used to understand human behaviour in wastewater reuse situation. Future research in understanding behaviour of public towards acceptance of recycled wastewater should incorporate additional behaviour theories as well.