A Comparative Analytical Study of the Water Use Efficiency Criterion within Sustainable Building Rating Systems

Water is essential for life and a crucial element in economic and social development, as well as in maintaining the ecosystems of various countries. Given its pivotal importance, water has been incorporated into various sustainable building rating systems developed in many countries, particularly developed nations.In the context of this research, some important sustainable building rating systems that are widespread in many countries were highlighted, namely the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) in the United Kingdom, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system in America, and The Pearl Rating System for ESTIDAMA (PRS) in the United Arab Emirates. These systems contain important and necessary criteria for achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability, and the relative importance and points allocated to these criteria were determined, with a focus on water-related criteria, and the results were compared to determine the importance of the water criterion in each of these systems.The research concluded that the highest relative importance of the (water use efficiency) standard was within the Pearl Rating System (PRS) in the UAE, which reflects the local context in the UAE, where water is a vital resource of great importance to life, health and economy, especially in light of the scarcity of natural resources as a result of the limited availability of groundwater. A set of recommendations was developed that can help rationalize and conserve water consumption.