Development of an uncertain water-food-energy nexus model for pursuing sustainable agricultural and electric productions

Sun, J.; Li, Y.P.; Suo, C.; Liu, J.

Development of an uncertain water-food-energy nexus model for pursuing sustainable agricultural and electric productions

2020

Sun, J. | Li, Y.P. | Suo, C. | Liu, J.

Agricultural and electric productions are the main water consumers. They are intricately interlinked and complicated. An uncertain water-food-energy (WFE) nexus model could well reflect the complex relationships among water, agriculture, and electricity. Chance-constrained fuzzy fractional programming (CFFP) method is proposed to reflect the uncertainties in WFE nexus system. It can handle multi-objectives expressed as output/input ratio problems in a fuzzy and random environment. Then, the CFFP-based WFE model is applied to Kaikong watershed (a water-scarce region in northwest China). Water resources utilization, agricultural land allocation and electricity generation are incorporated into the nexus framework for pursuing the maximum water use efficiency (i.e., unit water benefit). Uncertainties in water availability, water demand, and pollutant/CO₂ emission have synergistic effects on agricultural and electric productions. The unit water benefit ranges from 0.852 to 0.926 $/m³ across 144 scenarios. Results suggest that, at the end of planning horizon, irrigated agricultural area should be controlled below 203.4 × 10³ ha, and vegetable is encouraged. Proportion of fossil-energy power (i.e. coal- and gas-fired electricity) is optimized within 53.1 %–60.4 % in adaption to water and environment constraints. The obtained results can efficiently help optimize use of limited resources, and provide a synergic management strategy for regional sustainability.

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