Two offers to prevent excessive water consumption: A proposal for industrial design departments of universities

Water resources play an important role in the development of the socio-economic status of a country. The world’s population increased from one billion to six billions in less than 200 years. With the rapid increase in population and advancement in technology, demand for water increases steadily and the limited amount of available fresh water sources are subjected to severe environmental problems. Available fresh water in the world, which is less than 1% of the total volume of water on the Earth, is unevenly distributed. Therefore, management of water resources is very important. Limited fresh water resources are to be conserved against growing demands. In arid regions, it is extremely important to use water efficiently. This article aims to draw attention to the errors in the design of some shower mixers and disk type faucets, that cause excessive water consumption, and offers a retrofit and compression type faucets, respectively for having better water utilization efficiency. Additionally, in this article, considering the errors in the design of shower mixers and some other products, which are formed by the graduates of industrial design departments of faculties, it is commented that to be able to prevent or at least minimize errors in conceptual designs, the industrial design departments should be restructured to offer only 2nd tier programs for the graduates of engineering faculties. Key words: Water conservation, shower mixer valve, faucet valve, industrial design departments