Impact of Data Temporal Resolution on Quantifying Residential End Uses of Water

Residential water end-use events (e.g., showers, toilets, faucets, etc.) can be derived from high temporal resolution (<1 min) water metering data. Past studies have collected data at different temporal resolutions (e.g., 4 s, 5 s, or 10 s) without assessing the impact of the temporal aggregation interval on end-use event features (e.g., volume, flowrate, duration) due to the unavailability of data at a sufficient temporal resolution to enable such analyses. We recorded the time between every magnetic pulse generated by a magnetically driven residential water meter’s measurement element (full pulse resolution) using a new, open-source datalogging device and collected data for two residential homes in Utah, USA. We then examined water use events without temporally aggregating data and compared to the same data aggregated at different time intervals to evaluate how temporal resolution of the data affects our ability to identify end-use events, calculate features of individual events, and classify events by end use. Our results show how collecting full pulse resolution data can provide more accurate estimates of event occurrence, timing, and features along with producing more discriminative event features that can only be estimated from full pulse resolution data to make event classification easier and more accurate.