Urban Residents’ Acceptance Intention to Use Recycled Stormwater—An Examination of Values, Altruism, Social and Cultural Norms, and Perceived Health Risks

Abstract

Public acceptance is the basic premise for the implementation of stormwater reuse projects anywhere in the world. Based on the theory of planned behaviour, this study constructed a hypothesized model of urban residents’ intention to use recycled stormwater for non-potable residential purposes. Having received 669 valid questionnaires from urban residents in Taiyuan City, a Structural Equation Model was used to analyze their acceptance intention to use recycled stormwater. Results of the study showed that the degree of human contact with recycled stormwater influenced respondents’ acceptance intention to use it for that purpose, which is consistent with previous studies. The impact of factors, including valuation of stormwater, emotions, perceived health risks, or trust in government, on respondents’ acceptance intention to use recycled stormwater was found to be not significant, which adds to the inconsistent literature. The unique contributions of the study to literature include that altruism and social and cultural norms were found to have significantly positive impacts on residents’ acceptance intention to use the water, while social and cultural norms demonstrated a more significant impact. This finding is perceived to relate to the collectivism of Chinese culture; however, to what extent the relation could be requires further research to verify. The study also makes contributions to methodology by using social networking (WeChat Moments) to collect data in social science studies.