Changing shower and toilet habits could help close England’s 5 billion litre water gap, Surrey-led research finds

Changing how people shower, report leaks and flush toilets could help close England’s projected five billion litre 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, Promoting domestic water efficiency via behaviour change, draws on input from more than 100 professionals across 60 organisations 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 litres 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 litres by 2050. According to the Environment Agency’s national framework, 60 per cent of the projected deficit must be recovered through demand management, and researchers believe that means changing behaviour at home.

The water sector knows that behaviour change matters, but it needs to do more to connect with what we know around how people use water. Most initiatives so far have focused on increasing motivation to save water. That approach has its limits – particularly when the behaviours 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 litres of water they are using is unlikely to change that. Professor Benjamin Gardner, Professor in Psychology; MSc Behaviour Change Programme Lead

Sector professionals rated reporting or fixing in-home leaks, showering and flushing toilets as the three most important behaviour change targets. Showering typically uses between six to 15 litres per minute, and a quarter of all drinking water used in UK homes is used to flush toilets. Four of the six highest-priority behaviours 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 behaviour change depends on understanding what drives a behaviour 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.

We know from our own research that real-time feedback during a shower, delivered at the moment the behaviour is happening, can meaningfully reduce how long people spend under the water. 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 behaviours that matter, before it can design solutions that will actually stick. Dr Pablo Pereira Doel, Human Insight Lab co-director; Fellow at the Institute for Sustainability; Visiting Fellow, Center for Tourism Research at Wakayama University (Japan)

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

The report makes five recommendations:

Water sector organisations should work directly with behavioural 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 organisations
Behaviour 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 and is available open access at https://tinyurl.com/surreywaterefficiencyarcreport.

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Notes to editors