Integrated modeling approach for sustainable land-water-food nexus management

Abstract

Population growth, rapid urbanization, changing diets, and economic development are among the major driving factors of increased demand for water, food and land. In this study, an integrated model was developed for managing land-water-food nexus. A water footprint-based fuzzy fractional programming (WFFP) is developed for optimizing resource allocations toward sustainable food and water security under the agricultural, food, socioeconomic, and natural resource constraints. By calculating the blue and green water footprint of each crop, optimum food requirements were converted into optimal cropping options. The WFFP method can tackle ratio optimization problems associated with fuzzy information, in which fuzzy possibilistic programming is integrated into a linear fractional programming framework. The method is applied to a case study of the Three (Yangtze-Yellow-Lantsang) Rivers Headwaters Region of China. The results can provide the basis for water and agricultural policies formulation and land-water-food nexus management in the study region.