Residential water use in Canada indicator: data sources and methods, chapter 5

5. Caveats and limitations

Changes in the survey designs of the Municipal Water Use and Pricing (MUD) survey and Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey (MWWS) through time will contribute to differences in the indicator values through time.

Data collected by the MWWS and Households and the Environment Survey (HES) are not directly comparable, as they sample different populations. In spite of differences between the two data sources, the HES is a robust statistical survey and the long-term trends are reliable and comparable to the MWWS.

The coverage error for the HES is based on the survey of which it is a sub-sample (i.e., the Labour Force Survey in 2006 and the Canadian Community Health Survey starting in 2007). In all cases, the coverage error is estimated at less than 2%.