Objective  To examine drinking water intake and daily life water usage among urban adult residents in Lanzhou city of Gansu province and to provide basic data for estimating domestic water-related exposure parameters for health risk assessment.

  Methods  A total of 1 236 residents aged 18 years and older were randomly selected with stratified multistage cluster sampling from four urban districts in Lanzhou for a questionnaire survey during July – August and December, 2017. Information on drinking water intake and dermal exposure parameter-related to water usage were collected and analyzed.

  Results  The medians of direct, indirect, and total drinking water intake were 1 650 mL/d, 394 mL/d and 2 142 mL/d among the respondents, respectively; the three medians differed significantly by gender, age, and body mass index (BMI) groups and the median for indirect drinking water intake was significantly different among the respondents with various occupations (P < 0.05 for all). The average body surface area was 1.746 m² for all the respondents and the average area was 1.846 m² and 1.646 m² for the male and female respondents, and 1.731 m², 1.783 m² and 1.709 m² for the respondents aged 18 – 44, 45 – 64 and over 65 years old, respectively. The total time of water-related daily activity of the respondents was 76.51 minutes per day (min/d); the time water-related daily activity was 5.67, 6.26, 6.24 and 12.75 min/d for washing face, hands, head and feet, 14.34 min/d for bathing, 13.18 and 11.97 min/d for washing dishes and vegetables, and 6.10 min/d for washing clothes, respectively; the times of water-related daily activities differed significantly by gender, age and occupation among the respondents (all P < 0.05).

  Conclusion  Gender, age, BMI and occupation may influence drinking water intake and daily life water usage among adult urban residents in Lanzhou city.