Integrated Watershed Management with Multiobjective Land-Use Optimizations under Uncertainty

Abstract

Integrated watershed management plays an important role in the environment and ecosystem. This paper analyzes multiobjective optimizations of agricultural land-use management problems with uncertainty involved. For each trial land-use scenario, multiple objective functions are constructed based on coupled simulation of the AnnAGNPS watershed model and the CCHE1D channel network model. To account for parameter uncertainties and uncertainties in numerical model results, the combined objective function is calculated using a fuzzy logic system based on interval computations to obtain a membership function, which yields not only a crisp value but also a range of variations. The proposed approach is tested with a land-use management study for the Goodwin Creek Experimental Watershed in northern Mississippi. The results show that it is a convenient way to introduce uncertainty-related considerations into an optimization framework, and it can incorporate various model parameters that are difficult or impossible for other uncertainty analysis techniques to consider. More importantly, this approach allows for the development of a complex system of estimating the responses between management goals and miscellaneous environmental factors under uncertainty.