2.1. Pilot Site Selection: Comparative Screening of Campus versus Community Scenarios
Implementing a water demand and resource monitoring framework in Monterrey requires a pragmatic site selection protocol that balances institutional control with operational scalability. This design selects a university campus setting rather than an open residential community for the initial deployment phase. Practical selection criteria prioritize administrative boundary definition, rapid sub-metering installation, operational transparency, and the institutional capacity to adjust internal allocation protocols. Macroeconomic modeling of water scarcity demonstrates that regional systems depend on differentiated adaptation capabilities and structural allocation efficiency across competing activities (Roson, 2017). A campus environment provides a defined governance structure to simulate such allocation rules without exposing municipal populations to unpredictable supply disruptions or acute shortages. Furthermore, community-level pilots face behavioral complexities that confound early baseline assessments. Research on residential demand confirms that under severe scarcity conditions, intrinsic social motivations can crowd out economic price mechanisms and generate volatile consumption responses (Marzano et al., 2018). By contrast, an institutional campus features centralized facility management, standardized operational schedules, and uniform infrastructure access, enabling precise calibration of digital flow sensors and recycling loops. The expected application of this campus pilot is to establish verified baseline efficiency benchmarks, validate real-time monitoring sensors, and refine automated threshold controls. Once these governance and technical parameters achieve stability, municipal authorities and industrial planners can adapt the standardized monitoring protocols to complex urban neighborhoods and regional manufacturing zones across Nuevo León.