Google trends and water conservation awareness: the internet’s contribution in South Africa

ABSTRACT South Africa has periods of drought, which lead to water restrictions. Enhanced public awareness and understanding of water scarcity and drought might contribute to the sensible use of water resources. In this article the level and nature of public awareness towards water scarcity and drought in South Africa were determined using Google Trends over a period of 10 consecutive years from 1 January 2009–1 January 2019. Google Trends has real-time datasets, which examines search terms on Google and offers insight into current interests. The data were used to establish the level of public awareness regarding water scarcity and drought. Pre-drought searches were compared to searches done during drought conditions and the correspondence between Google Trend searches and media headlines were identified. People’s searches reflected that they were more environmentally aware during media reported environmental crises.