4.2.4. Water Quality Evaluations

Our findings supported the hypothesis that higher tap water quality evaluations in terms of taste, smell, and appearance would be associated with an individual's choice to drink from tap water sources instead of alternates. Of the perceptions we measured, water quality evaluations had as strong an effect as trust or comparative risk and was the only factor that differed between those who exclusively drank tap water and all other clusters. These results are similar to those of previous literature that cites organoleptic properties as a crucial determinant of tap water drinking [18,37,41]. While trust in water safety and risk perceptions both focus on water security, organoleptic evaluations relate to enjoyment of water. March et al. (2020) found that perception of taste is a stronger motivational factor in bottled water drinking than safety concerns [60]. Our results support the observation that these factors of enjoyment are strongly tied to each type of drinking water behavior.
