IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v223y2019ic67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The nexus of water, ecosystems and agriculture in arid areas: A multiobjective optimization study on system efficiencies

Author

Listed:
  • Niu, Geng
  • Zheng, Yi
  • Han, Feng
  • Qin, Huapeng

Abstract

In arid areas, agricultural development can occur at the expense of ecosystem conservation and water quality. To balance the conflicting interests, the water-ecosystem-agriculture (WEA) nexus in such areas needs to be systematically addressed. In this study, a multi objective linear fractional programming (MOLFP) approach is proposed to model the synergies and tradeoffs in the WEA nexus. Using this approach, the impacts of changes in hydrological conditions, land use, and the water management regime on the economic, ecological, and environmental efficiencies of the agricultural system in Zhangye Basin (ZB) (a typical arid area in northwestern China) were assessed. The major study findings are as follows: First, the MOLFP approach can effectively identify solutions for optimization problems with multiple interrelated ratio-type objectives, and the optimization results intrinsically reflect the behavior of the socioeconomic system. Second, in wet conditions, the agricultural system can be more profitable and environmentally friendly but less efficient in saving water for the ecosystems in the downstream area. Third, the potential land-use conversion from croplands into fallow or built-up areas, as well as the new water quality regulation, may lead to co benefits of economic, ecological and environmental efficiencies. Finally, the flexibility to adjust the spatial pattern of crop planting makes the agricultural system in ZB exhibit good resilience to water, land, and food stresses. However, the resilience is seriously impaired under very dry conditions and dramatic land-use changes. Overall, this study lays out a new framework for addressing the complex WEA nexus through system modeling and provides insights into agriculture planning and water resources management in arid areas.

Suggested Citation

  • Niu, Geng & Zheng, Yi & Han, Feng & Qin, Huapeng, 2019. "The nexus of water, ecosystems and agriculture in arid areas: A multiobjective optimization study on system efficiencies," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 1-1.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:223:y:2019:i:c:67
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105697
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377419302690
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105697?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anik Bhaduri & Claudia Ringler & Ines Dombrowski & Rabi Mohtar & Waltina Scheumann, 2015. "Sustainability in the water-energy-food nexus," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(5-6), pages 723-732, September.
    2. Raju, Komaragiri Srinivasa & Pillai, C. R. S., 1999. "Multicriterion decision making in performance evaluation of an irrigation system," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 112(3), pages 479-488, February.
    3. Li, Y.P. & Liu, J. & Huang, G.H., 2014. "A hybrid fuzzy-stochastic programming method for water trading within an agricultural system," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 71-83.
    4. Wu, Xin & Zheng, Yi & Wu, Bin & Tian, Yong & Han, Feng & Zheng, Chunmiao, 2016. "Optimizing conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater for irrigation to address human-nature water conflicts: A surrogate modeling approach," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 380-392.
    5. Castrodeza, Carmen & Lara, Pablo & Pena, Teresa, 2005. "Multicriteria fractional model for feed formulation: economic, nutritional and environmental criteria," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 76-96, October.
    6. Zhu, H. & Huang, W.W. & Huang, G.H., 2014. "Planning of regional energy systems: An inexact mixed-integer fractional programming model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 500-514.
    7. Chen, Fang & Huang, Guohe & Fan, Yurui, 2015. "A linearization and parameterization approach to tri-objective linear programming problems for power generation expansion planning," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 240-250.
    8. Gordon, Line J. & Finlayson, C. Max & Falkenmark, Malin, 2010. "Managing water in agriculture for food production and other ecosystem services," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(4), pages 512-519, April.
    9. A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1962. "Programming with linear fractional functionals," Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(3‐4), pages 181-186, September.
    10. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    11. Maino, Mario & Berdegue, Julio & Rivas, Teodoro, 1993. "Multiple objective programming -- An application for analysis and evaluation of peasant economy of the VIIIth Region of Chile," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 387-397.
    12. Zhang, Y.M. & Lu, H.W. & Nie, X.H. & He, L. & Du, P., 2014. "An interactive inexact fuzzy bounded programming approach for agricultural water quality management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 104-111.
    13. Raju, K. S & Kumar, D. N, 1999. "Multicriterion decision making in irrigation planning," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 117-129, November.
    14. Niu, G. & Li, Y.P. & Huang, G.H. & Liu, J. & Fan, Y.R., 2016. "Crop planning and water resource allocation for sustainable development of an irrigation region in China under multiple uncertainties," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 53-69.
    15. Werner Dinkelbach, 1967. "On Nonlinear Fractional Programming," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(7), pages 492-498, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Youzhi & Guo, Xinwei & Zhang, Fan & Yin, Huijuan & Guo, Ping & Zhang, Wenge & Li, Qiangkun, 2022. "The spatially-distributed ANN-optimization approach for water-agriculture-ecology nexus management under uncertainties and risks," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    2. Liu, Fangmei & Li, Li & Liang, Gemin & Huang, Liqiao & Gao, Wei, 2022. "National water footprints and embodied environmental consequences of major economic sectors-a case study of Japan," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 30-46.
    3. Cao, Zhaodan & Zhu, Tingju & Cai, Ximing, 2023. "Hydro-agro-economic optimization for irrigated farming in an arid region: The Hetao Irrigation District, Inner Mongolia," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    4. Karner, Katrin & Schmid, Erwin & Schneider, Uwe A. & Mitter, Hermine, 2021. "Computing stochastic Pareto frontiers between economic and environmental goals for a semi-arid agricultural production region in Austria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    5. Radmehr, Riza & Ghorbani, Mohammad & Ziaei, Ali Naghi, 2021. "Quantifying and managing the water-energy-food nexus in dry regions food insecurity: New methods and evidence," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    6. Anantha, K.H. & Garg, Kaushal K. & Barron, Jennie & Dixit, Sreenath & Venkataradha, A. & Singh, Ramesh & Whitbread, Anthony M., 2021. "Impact of best management practices on sustainable crop production and climate resilience in smallholder farming systems of South Asia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    7. Min Chen & Songhao Shang & Wei Li, 2020. "Integrated Modeling Approach for Sustainable Land-Water-Food Nexus Management," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-19, April.
    8. Li, Mo & Li, Haiyan & Fu, Qiang & Liu, Dong & Yu, Lei & Li, Tianxiao, 2021. "Approach for optimizing the water-land-food-energy nexus in agroforestry systems under climate change," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    9. Zhang, Zepeng & Wang, Qingzheng & Guan, Qingyu & Xiao, Xiong & Mi, Jimin & Lv, Songjian, 2023. "Research on the optimal allocation of agricultural water and soil resources in the Heihe River Basin based on SWAT and intelligent optimization," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    10. Zuo, Qiting & Wu, Qingsong & Yu, Lei & Li, Yongping & Fan, Yurui, 2021. "Optimization of uncertain agricultural management considering the framework of water, energy and food," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 253(C).
    11. Tang, Xiaoyu & Huang, Yue & Pan, Xiaohui & Liu, Tie & Ling, Yunan & Peng, Jiabin, 2024. "Managing the water-agriculture-environment-energy nexus: Trade-offs and synergies in an arid area of Northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Harald Dyckhoff & Katrin Allen, 1999. "Theoretische Begründung einer Effizienzanalyse mittels Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 51(5), pages 411-436, May.
    2. Abbas Amini Fasakhodi & Seyed Nouri & Manouchehr Amini, 2010. "Water Resources Sustainability and Optimal Cropping Pattern in Farming Systems; A Multi-Objective Fractional Goal Programming Approach," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 24(15), pages 4639-4657, December.
    3. Chen, Fang & Huang, Guohe & Fan, Yurui, 2015. "A linearization and parameterization approach to tri-objective linear programming problems for power generation expansion planning," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 240-250.
    4. Li, Xiaojuan & Kang, Shaozhong & Niu, Jun & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Li, Sien & Ding, Risheng, 2017. "Applying uncertain programming model to improve regional farming economic benefits and water productivity," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 352-365.
    5. Zhang, Zepeng & Wang, Qingzheng & Guan, Qingyu & Xiao, Xiong & Mi, Jimin & Lv, Songjian, 2023. "Research on the optimal allocation of agricultural water and soil resources in the Heihe River Basin based on SWAT and intelligent optimization," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    6. Azarnoosh Kafi & Behrouz Daneshian & Mohsen Rostamy-Malkhalifeh, 2021. "Forecasting the confidence interval of efficiency in fuzzy DEA," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 31(1), pages 41-59.
    7. Tunjo Perić & Josip Matejaš & Zoran Babić, 2023. "Advantages, sensitivity and application efficiency of the new iterative method to solve multi-objective linear fractional programming problem," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 31(3), pages 751-767, September.
    8. Zhang, Yanfang & Wei, Jinpeng & Gao, Qi & Shi, Xunpeng & Zhou, Dequn, 2022. "Coordination between the energy-consumption permit trading scheme and carbon emissions trading: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    9. Bao-Ngoc Tong & Cheng-Ping Cheng & Lien-Wen Liang & Yi-Jun Liu, 2023. "Using Network DEA to Explore the Effect of Mobile Payment on Taiwanese Bank Efficiency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    10. Changyu Zhou & Guohe Huang & Jiapei Chen, 2019. "A Type-2 Fuzzy Chance-Constrained Fractional Integrated Modeling Method for Energy System Management of Uncertainties and Risks," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-21, June.
    11. Phung, Manh-Trung & Cheng, Cheng-Ping & Guo, Chuanyin & Kao, Chen-Yu, 2020. "Mixed Network DEA with Shared Resources: A Case of Measuring Performance for Banking Industry," Operations Research Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 7(C).
    12. Hajkowicz, Stefan & Higgins, Andrew, 2008. "A comparison of multiple criteria analysis techniques for water resource management," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(1), pages 255-265, January.
    13. Chen, Kuan-Chen & Lin, Sun-Yuan & Yu, Ming-Miin, 2022. "Exploring the efficiency of hospital and pharmacy utilizations in Taiwan: An application of dynamic network data envelopment analysis," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Yangxue Ning & Yan Zhang & Guoqiang Wang, 2023. "An Improved DEA Prospect Cross-Efficiency Evaluation Method and Its Application in Fund Performance Analysis," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, January.
    15. Lu, H.W. & Huang, G.H. & Zhang, Y.M. & He, L., 2012. "Strategic agricultural land-use planning in response to water-supplier variation in a China’s rural region," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 19-28.
    16. Richard S. Barr & Kory A. Killgo & Thomas F. Siems & Sheri Zimmel, 1999. "Evaluating the productive efficiency and performance of U.S. commercial banks," Financial Industry Studies Working Paper 99-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    17. Maziar Sahamkhadam, 2021. "Dynamic copula-based expectile portfolios," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(3), pages 209-223, May.
    18. Cook, Wade D. & Zhu, Joe, 2007. "Within-group common weights in DEA: An analysis of power plant efficiency," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(1), pages 207-216, April.
    19. W D Cook & J Zhu, 2011. "Output-specific input-assurance regions in DEA," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(10), pages 1881-1887, October.
    20. Fijałkowska Justyna & Sačer Ivana Mamić & Zyznarska-Dworczak Beata & Sandulescu Maria-Silvia & Garsztka Przemysław & Mokošova Daša, 2023. "The Efficiency of Sustainability Engagement Reported by Banks in Poland, Croatia and Romania," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 15(1), pages 94-123, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:223:y:2019:i:c:67. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.