2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

We conducted focus groups in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to inform design of a survey to understanding residents’ knowledge and acceptance of potable water reuse. We drew from the literature on surveys related to potable water reuse to design the initial version of our survey instrument. Our study population differed from those where similar research has been conducted in that it is a medium-sized inland community as opposed to a large coastal one, with little prior knowledge of potable water reuse. Our experience demonstrated that focus group and survey materials previously used by others were too complicated and confusing for our population. We share lessons learned from focus groups conducted in a medium-sized arid inland community where media and opposition groups had not yet distributed information on potable water reuse. We recommend that researchers and water managers who are contemplating conducting a similar survey consider the following: (1) it is challenging to survey people on an unfamiliar topic, (2) information and diagrams on technical details may not be appropriate for a short introductory survey, (3) getting the water vocabulary right is important for informed decision-making, (4) getting the climate change vocabulary right is critical to maximizing survey participation, (5) questions about trace contaminants in drinking water and costs may not be appropriate for a short introductory survey, (6) including a question about trust is essential, and (7) creative thinking is needed to increase participation among certain subpopulations. We achieved a high response rate of 46% for both our pretest and full survey, suggesting that our survey design was on target for our population. This project is unique in the literature to date, and we believe that our lessons learned during the critical survey-development stages of the project will be useful to both researchers and water managers in small-to-medium-sized arid inland communities.