A Study on the Impact of Environmental Education on Individuals' Behaviors Concerning Recycled Water Reuse

In order to verify whether environmental education can play guiding role among the individuals in terms of the reuse of recycled water, and to further confirm its mechanism of action, a structural equation model was established in this study regarding to the influence of knowledge about recycled water on acceptability of recycled water. Besides, a survey was made among 714 individuals. The structural equation model revealed that high levels of knowledge about recycled water stimulate individuals' trust in water authorities, and reduce their perceived risk of recycled water. More specially, knowledge about recycled water was reported to be a significant predictor of individuals' acceptability of recycled water. Individuals' high levels knowledge about recycled water can affect their acceptability of recycled water indirectly through two different ways, while high levels knowledge about recycled water can reduce the individuals' perceived risk of recycled water, so it could increase their acceptability of recycled water indirectly. Another influence path is that high levels knowledge about recycled water could reduce individuals' perceived risk of recycled water by improving their trust in the water authorities, and ultimately improve their acceptability of recycled water. In this paper, it has proved that environmental education has significance guiding effect on individuals in terms of the use of recycled water, and provided a clue as how does environmental education affects individuals' behavior to use recycled water.