The two pie charts illustrate the proportion of residential water consumption across five household activities – garden, bathroom, kitchen, washing clothes, and toilet – in 1988 and 2008.
Overall, it is clear that residential water consumption for gardening, washing clothes, and the toilet decreased considerably, while water in the kitchen and bathroom showed a marked increase over the same period. Of particular note was the kitchen, which had the lowest share of residential water use in 1988, but stood out as the dominant fraction in the final year.
Focusing first on declined portions, people used 20% of water for gardening in 1988, and it declined dramatically to 8% in 2008. Additionally, the share of water usage in washing clothes made up 22% before dropping noticeably to 19% throughout the period. Toilet constituted 18% of water consumption in 2008, but this figure witnessed a significant drop, declining to 14% over the following years.
In contrast, the share of consumed water in the bathroom accounted for 25% in 1988 and jumped substantially to 29% over the three decades. Meanwhile, the percentage of water usage in the kitchen had a low degree of 15% in 1988 before seeing a substantial surge, doubling to 30% in 2008.