This work aimed to investigate the role of income variation on household water consumption supplied by the dealership (in this case, the water supply and sanitation services of Minas Gerais, Brazil - Copasa) in the urban area of Belo Horizonte, based on data spanning a period of 35 months (from August 2003 to June 2006). For this, data of the Monthly Employment Survey (PME, acronym in Portuguese) of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, acronym in Portuguese) were used, comprising 3,100 households with their 10,200 dwellers, and the household water consumption of the 6 operatinal districts of the Copasa. The household water consumption data were defined in order to allow the water consumption observation period to coincide with the social economic data. The results pointed out clearly that the household water consumption is strongly linked with the economical condition of the served population. This aspect was evident by means of the observation of spatial distribution and water consumption scattered related to the social economic characteristics and was supported by the highest coefficients of determination (R² > 0.8) obtained and the predictable water consumption saturation for the more prosperous social economic classes.
water consumption; household water consumption; water supply system; income variation
