Optimal design of the water-energy-food nexus for rural communities

Abstract

People from rural areas face some limitations to reach sustainable development, such as the lack of electricity. In this work, we propose a multi-objective nonlinear programming model to find the optimal design and operation of water, energy, and food systems for agricultural communities. To this aim, we develop, using a bottom-up approach, a mathematical formulation of a superstructure that includes renewable power technologies, water management devices, and food and energy crops. Numerical experiments are carried out using data from a community in Michoacan, Mexico. The results from the sensitivity analyses show that selling bioethanol as an economic activity can be attractive for this community by slightly increasing the biofuel price and the sugarcane yield. Moreover, the epsilon-constraint method, along with a Pareto filter, is applied to obtain compromised solutions. Some of these solutions represent a significant improvement in social and environmental dimensions while maintaining an acceptable economic index. These results show this methodology’s usefulness for analyzing economic opportunities and obtaining strategies to manage the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEFN), especially the land distribution between food and energy crops. The model proposed constitutes a contribution, as a decision-making tool, to the sustainable development of rural communities.