Water Resources Allocation with Uncertainties in Supply and Demand

Abstract

Water shortage, exacerbated by increasing population and rapid economic development, causes conflicts when allocating water for exploration of natural resources, socioeconomic progress, and ecological environment, which reinforces the need for optimal water resources allocation in an efficient manner. However, owing to both natural variations and human activities, decision-makers find it challenging to cope with the complexity of fluctuating water supply and demand that are critical for water resources allocation. It consequently affects the variations of tradeoffs between conflicting economic benefits, associated penalties due to infeasibility, and constraint-violation risks. In response to these issues, this chapter discusses an optimization modeling approach for agricultural water allocation at a regional scale, considering the uncertainties of water supply and demand. The dual uncertainty of water supply and demand is quantified based on the concept of random boundary intervals (RBIs). The RBIs are incorporated into an inexact two-stage stochastic programming framework to allocate limited water resources to different crops in different time periods. The approach is applicable to most regions with limited water supplies to determine water strategies under changing the environment.