ASRWM: an arid/semiarid region water management model

Water shortage resulting from both natural conditions and human activities has been proved to be a bottleneck that chokes development in arid and semiarid regions. Systems analysis provides an effective way of clarifying conflicts between water supply and demand. In this study, an arid/semiarid region water management (ASRWM) model is developed for sound planning of a water resources system. The proposed model is founded on interval-fuzzy multiobjective programming (IFMOP) for effectively reflecting complexities of the study system and expediently facilitating solution of the model. Membership functions for modeling objectives and constraints are formulated to reflect uncertainties in different system components and their interrelationships. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed model, a case study for the Luopu County in northwestern China has been undertaken. The modeling outputs generated through scenario analyses are based on in-depth examination of several sensitive issues including farming, horticulture, stockbreeding, spring water allocation, pasture expansion, and land exploitation. The obtained results lead to two alternatives that provide a useful basis for formulating desired policies of sustainable development in the region. Through the case study, the proposed model is proved to have reasonable computational requirements and to be applicable to large-scale practical planning problems.