An Inexact Two-Stage Water Resources Allocation Model for Sustainable Development and Management Under Uncertainty

In this study, an inexact two-stage water resources allocation (ITWR) model is put forward for supporting sustainable development and management of water resources in Sanjiang Plain, China, which is in such a situation, with multi-water source, multi-water supply subarea, multi-water user and multi-planning goal. The costs of net system, water supply and recourse are analyzed. The developed ITWR model, which shows a strong ability in tacking with various uncertain factors in probability distributions and discrete interval numbers, mixes the techniques of interval-parameter programming (IPP) and two-stage stochastic programming (TSP) within a general optimization framework. And it also has formed an effective link in such a conflict between the policy scenarios and the associated various levels of economic penalties, when the pre-allocation targets of water resources are violated. Based on this model, a series of scenarios under different levels of pre-allocation water is done and different degrees of water surplus and shortage are obtained correspondingly. The results indicate that the reasonable distribution plans with maximum system benefit and minimum system-failure risk have been generated. And these results are valuable for saving water resources to realize its sustainable development and mitigating the penalty to gain economic benefits maximum, and thus some desired results are provided for decision makers in tackling with a complex and uncertain water-resource system. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014