Multi-Objective Optimization of a Regional Water–Energy–Food System Considering Environmental Constraints: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia, China

Abstract

Water, energy, and food, as the basic material resources of human production and life, play a prominent role in social and economic development. As the imbalance between the supply and demand of water, energy, and food increases, a highly sensitive and fragile relationship gradually forms among water, energy, and food. In this paper, Inner Mongolia in China is selected as a research area. Firstly, synergy theory is applied to establish the framework of a water–energy–food system. Then, a multi-objective programming model is constructed, where the objective functions are defined to minimize the integrated deviation degree and pollutant emissions of the water–energy–food system. Meanwhile, maximization of the water benefit, energy production, and food production is also considered. In addition, the model takes economy, environment, water, energy, and food as constraints. Finally, a genetic algorithm is designed for accurately assessing the most promising results. The results show that the cooperation degree of the water–energy–food system in Inner Mongolia is getting better and better, and the pollutant emission from the water–energy–food system is decreasing. In 2020, the proportion of agricultural water consumption fell by 1%, while that of industrial water consumption rose by 0.48%. The production of coal, natural gas, and power are all showing an increasing trend. Among them, the increase of natural gas production is as high as 38,947,730 tons of standard coal. However, the proportions of coal, natural gas, and power change inconsistently, where the proportions of coal and natural gas increase while that of power decreases. Corn production accounts for more than 80% of the total, which is in the eldest brother position in the food industry structure. Besides, there are differences between the planned values and optimal values of decision variables. Finally, suggestions are put forward to improve the sustainable development of water–energy–food in Inner Mongolia.

Optimization of Regional Water-Energy-Food Systems Based on Interval Number Multi-Objective Programming: A Case Study of Ordos, China

“…(6) The amount of energy used in food production is less than or equal to the amount of energy distributed in food production. (7) The amount of water distribution of per unit irrigation area should reach a certain guarantee:…”

“…Meanwhile, the production, storage and processing of food also require the supply of energy, and food can be transformed into biomass energy as a form of energy. In addition, environmental pollution is also needed to be considered into the WEF system, which mainly includes the discharge of pollutants in the process of energy and food production [7]. The relationship between the various subsystems in the WEF system is shown in Figure 1.…”

Optimising Agrivoltaic Systems: Identifying Suitable Solar Development Sites for Integrated Food and Energy Production

“…This relationship between CLEW and its derivatives finds extensive use in energy planning assessments, evaluating the WEF (Water, Energy, Food) nexus for sustainable resource planning [12], [13], [14], [15]. The WEFE (Water, Energy, Food, Environment) relationship assesses the impact of food and energy production on water and the environment [16], [17]. In the realm of CLEW relationships, it has been extensively used to test the consequences of land exploitation for energy production on climate and water [8], [9], [18], [19], [20].…”

Spatio-temporal Evolution of Water-Energy-Food System Risk from the Provincial Perspective: A Case Study of China

“…Many studies world-wide have focused on WEF nexus [8][9][10][11][12] , such as internal interaction mechanism [13][14][15] , security evaluation 16 , influential factors study 17 , optimization research 18 and so on [19][20][21][22] .…”