Optimization of water consumption distribution based on crop suitability in the middle reaches of Heihe River

Abstract

Optimizing regional crop water consumption is considered to be a significant approach for increasing yields and reducing water consumption. This paper proposes a single-objective linear programming model which couples the distributed water consumption model with crop suitability. The impacts of meteorological, topographic, and soil factors were taken into account in both the distributed water consumption model and the crop suitability. The developed model was applied to a real case study in the middle reaches of Heihe River basin, in the northwest of China. In the optimization model, the net benefit which combined the water consumption with crop suitability was regarded as the objective function, while the limits on available water and planting area were set as the constraints. Optimal results regarding crop distribution and water consumption were generated for dry, normal, and wet hydrological years. Two optimization strategies were analyzed, including one with a fixed area of each crop and the other with a fixed total planting area. Economic analyses showed that net income under both optimization strategies increased by 31% and 33%, respectively. Although water consumption increased slightly in both optimization scenarios, the unit water income and unit area income were much higher than in the pre-optimization conditions. The obtained results are valuable for supporting the adjustment of planting patterns and the identification of desired plans for sustainable irrigation water allocation.