The relevance of aggregating a water consumption model cannot be disconnected from the choice of information available on the resource

In this paper we show that the relevance of using an aggregate vs. an individual based model of water consumption highly depends on the information available on the resource. We use two versions of a consumption model (individual-based and aggregate), simulating a reversible diffusion process which depends on the information available on the resource. We compare the results of the two models for various kinds links between the resource and consumption models and corresponding to the information about the resource provided to the consumers. We propose and test different properties of this information which might lead to difference of the results.