Two-Stage Multiobjective Decision-Making Method Based on Agricultural Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Case Study in Hetao Irrigation District China.

Due to the complex feedback cycle relationship among water resources, energy, and food, the agricultural water management mode and concept with a single object or two objects as the core can no longer meet the inherent requirements of the coordinated, sustained, and healthy development of economy and society. A two-stage multiobjective decision-making method based on a θ -dominance evolutionary algorithm (θ -DEA) is proposed for the optimization of agricultural systems with a water-energy-food nexus. First, the Pareto noninferior solution set of the model is obtained by the evolutionary algorithm based on θ -DEA. Then, the economic benefit and carbon emission of each solution are evaluated, and the optimal solution is selected by using the multiobjective decision-making method based on interval-valued hesitant fuzzy sets and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Through a case study of the Hetao Irrigation District (HID), the best optimization results are obtained when the carbon footprint is 4.16×109 kg CO2 eq, and the economic benefit is 8.09×109 yuan. The example shows that the model can well select the optimal allocation solution of water resources, which not only has high economic benefits and low pollution discharge but also meets the subjective wishes of decision-makers. The model has good practicability and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]