High-Resolution Water Consumption Profiles in University Dormitories: Implications for Sustainable Water Supply System Design and Operation

University dormitories constitute a unique category of residential buildings characterized by highly variable occupancy patterns, intensive daily water use and strong seasonal fluctuations associated with the academic calendar. Despite their importance, detailed long-term investigations based on high-resolution smart metering data remain scarce. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of one-year high-resolution (15 min interval) water consumption measurements collected from four university dormitories (Bialystok Technical University). The objectives were to characterize temporal water demand patterns, identify similarities and differences between buildings, determine hourly, daily and seasonal variability, and calculate peak demand coefficients relevant to water supply system design and operation. The results revealed a characteristic daily demand pattern consisting of low night-time demand, a gradual morning increase and a dominant evening peak. Seasonal variability and differences between individual dormitories were observed, although the overall shape of the hourly demand profiles remained highly repeatable throughout the monitoring period. Based on the obtained results, representative hourly demand profiles and hourly demand pattern coefficients were developed for individual dormitories, the entire dormitory campus, weekdays and weekends. The proposed profiles provide building-type-specific reference demand patterns that may support hydraulic modeling and further smart metering applications.