Bilevel multiobjective programming applied to water resources allocation

Abstract

Water allocation is an essential programming to support the sustainable development of Wuwei Basin, Gansu Province, China. To satisfy the demands of the decision makers (DMs) of each subarea and the total area, a bilevel multiobjective linear programming (BLMOLP) model is proposed. In the BLMOLP, DMs have a hierarchy of two levels - the upper level and the lower level DMs. In this paper, a fuzzy goal programming (FGP) approach is applied to solve the BLMOLP. Firstly, the upper level is solved and used as the tolerance for the lower level. Then the weights of each objective function in the lower level are evaluated. Finally, a satisfied optimization solution of the problem was calculated. The result suggests that the FGP is a simple and feasible approach to BLMOLP problems. The proposed method was applied to a case study for water resources allocation in Wuwei Basin. For four scenarios under consideration, the model can effectively balance the benefits among all regions and sections according to the priority of the upper level decision makers. The results indicate that comprehensive solutions have been obtained. © 2013 Shiqi Fang et al.