Modelling public intention to reduce Non-Revenue Water: An expanded version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Abstract

The study aims to examine the public’s Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction behavioural intention in Malaysia. It attempts to expand the social-psychological behavioural model (i.e. the theory of planned behaviour (TPB)) by adding the constructs of environmental knowledge, environmental concern, the respondents’ gender, age group, ethnicity, marital status and education level to predict the public’s behavioural intention to engage in NRW reduction practices. A self-structured questionnaire with face-to-face interview was employed to gather responses from 800 citizens who are currently living in the state of Selangor, the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Pahang, and Johor. Following the subsequent hierarchical linear regression models, the final model has explained 51.3% of the variance in behavioural intention to engage in NRW reduction practices. The study’s findings identify that the factors of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, environmental knowledge, environmental concern, and gender significantly influence the NRW reduction intention. Moreover, the study reveals that ethnicity and education differences have significant influences on the expanded TPB in terms of NRW reduction. This study contributes to the existing theory and practice by providing useful insights about the attribution of environmental knowledge and environmental concern on the public’s NRW reduction intention.