Water Consumption during COVID-19 Pandemic: Trend Analyses in Puglia (Southern Italy)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected water consumption due to the Italian government’s stay-at-home orders to reduce virus spread. Thanks to a complete dataset (hourly water demand for 2019, 2020, and 2021) related to five Apulian towns, there were observed different trends in water consumption during the pandemic period compared with the pre-pandemic one, having previously excluded other possible influencing factors. There is a marked reduction in areas characterised by a high number of collective activities, less evident where the economy is mainly based on agriculture or summer tourism, highlighting that the water consumption by collective activities is significant.