Synthesis of a Theoretical Framework for Understanding Factors that Catalyse and Influence Household Adoption of Rainwater Harvesting

This paper examines the experiences of South East Queensland (SEQ) households concerning rainwater harvesting (RH). Although the adoption of household RH is currently booming after extended stagnation at around 8% in SEQ, what actually motivates this adoption is not well understood. This paper reports on the pilot study for my doctoral thesis, which has the three aims of (a) characterising household RH adoptions in the SEQ community, (b) evaluating an original synthesis of Ecological Modernisation’s systemic perspective and Diffusion of Innovation’s actor-centred perspective as a framework to understand household RH adoption to (c) determine a valid, reliable and robust way of describing or predicting the household adoption of RH technologies. 61 Ipswich households, in three groups (existing RH, retrofitted RH, no RH) completed a selfadministered 200+ item written survey spanning RH system characteristics, issues that catalyse and influence household RH adoption decision making, household behaviours, beliefs and demographics. The empirical rigour of the synthesis is examined by overlaying quantitative and qualitative survey data on core elements of the theories. 11 constructs emergent in the synthesis of the theoretical positions are developed conceptually and empirically to arrive at a framework that provides theoretical refinement of perspectives on the household RH adoption phenomena.