Sustainable Management of Agricultural Water Rights Trading under Uncertainty: an Optimization-Evaluation Framework

The optimal allocation of agricultural water rights is of great importance in promoting the efficient management of water resources in irrigation areas. In the process of agricultural water rights allocation, problems develop when the dynamics and uncertainties caused by changes in water cycle elements are ignored. To balance socioeconomic development and environmental protection, this study develops a model framework for evaluating and optimizing the synergistic management of agricultural water rights allocation trading under multiple uncertainties (AWRAS-TCME). The model is capable of reflecting the dynamic changes in meteorological and hydrological factors such as rainfall, evapotranspiration and runoff and quantitatively measures the synergistic effect of multidimensional objectives of the economy-society-resources-environment on water rights allocations and transactions. The AWRAS-TCME model integrates a two-level multiobjective nonlinear programming model and a projection tracking model into a framework to measure the fairness and economic benefits of water rights allocation based on an analysis of the sustainability of water rights prices in multiple dimensions, fully considering the influence of uncertainties in hydrological and social systems. The model was applied to an actual irrigation area, and the results showed that (1) total optimized water rights allocation was reduced by 4.7–20.9% at different levels of water supply and demand; (2) the total volume of water rights transfer among regions was increased by 4.8%−12.9%, and the trading volume of the water rights market was increased to account for 5%−16.2% of the total revenue; and (3) the optimal net income of water rights allocation was increased by 1.2%−3.3%, and the equity of water rights allocation was increased by 0.06–0.09. The developed model promotes the sustainable utilization of agricultural water resources in irrigated areas.