Recycled water acceptance: Data from two Spanish regions with opposite levels of scarcity

The dataset presented in this paper were collected for testing a perceptive-axiological model of recycled water acceptance for low and high contact uses. Participants were selected by proportional random sampling by sex and age the two Spanish communities with the most extreme values of water stress (Galicia, the rainiest region and Murcia, the driest). Data were collected by a company specialized in market research using an online survey housed on Qualtrics. Participants who matched the specified profile were contacted by email. The company compensated them financially. The final sample size consisted of 726 valid responses. The survey collected data on a variety of variables related to three conceptual dimensions: the diagnosis of the environmental situation, the axiological influence and the public perceptions regarding recycled water. The survey also collected demographic data from respondents. The survey was designed and reviewed by four experts in social psychology and two experts in methodology. The dataset featured in this article provides the raw survey data plus sociodemographic distribution, survey items, and other statistical data. This is the first and most comprehensive set of comparative data known to the authors on public acceptance of water reuse for high and low contact uses comparing regions with and without water scarcity. The authors have published an open access paper based on this data set, which are linked to this paper. Water industry professionals, policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders aiming to implement wastewater reuse systems in society may be interested in using the data as a point of comparison for their own study on public acceptance of water reuse or examining the data for relationships not yet explored in the literature.