Journal Article

Trade-off between water pollution prevention, agriculture profit, and farmer practice—an optimization methodology for discussion on land-use adjustment in China

Luoping, Zhang, Yuzhen, Zhang, Hongbing, Deng, Jianchang, Liu

2015

Overview

Agricultural decision-making to control nonpoint source (NPS) water pollution may not be efficiently implemented, if there is no appropriate cost-benefit analysis on agricultural management practices. This paper presents an interval-fuzzy linear programming (IFLP) model to deal with the trade-off between agricultural revenue, NPS pollution control, and alternative practices through land adjustment for Wuchuan catchment, a typical agricultural area in Jiulong River watershed, Fujian Province of China. From the results, the lower combination of practice 1, practice 2, practice 3, and practice 7 with the land area of 12.6, 5.2, 145.2, and 85.3 hm², respectively, could reduce NPS pollution load by 10 %. The combination yields an income of 98,580 Chinese Yuan/a. If the pollution reduction is 15 %, the higher combination need practice 1, practice 2, practice 3, practice 5, and practice 7 with the land area of 54.4, 23.6, 18.0, 6.3, and 85.3 hm², respectively. The income of this combination is 915,170 Chinese Yuan/a. The sensitivity analysis of IFLP indicates that the cost-effective practices are ranked as follows: practice 7 > practice 2 > practice 1 > practice 5 > practice 3 > practice 6 > practice 4. In addition, the uncertainties in the agriculture NPS pollution control system could be effectively quantified by the IFLP model. Furthermore, to accomplish a reasonable and applicable project of land-use adjustment, decision-makers could also integrate above solutions with their own experience and other information.

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag,Springer International Publishing,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Adjustment / Agricultural management / Agricultural practices / Agriculture / Agriculture - methods / analysis / Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution / Best management practices / chemistry / China / Control systems / Cost benefit analysis / cost effectiveness / Decision making / Earth and Environmental Science / Ecology / Ecotoxicology / Efficiency / Environment / Environmental Management / Environmental Monitoring / Environmental protection / Environmental science / Farmers / Farming / Farms / Fisheries / income / Integrated approach / Laboratories / Land / Land area / Land use / Linear programming / Mathematical programming / methods / Monitoring/Environmental Analysis / Nonpoint source pollution / Optimization / Pollutants / Pollution abatement / Pollution control / Pollution load / Pollution prevention / Prevention / prevention & control / Rivers / Rivers - chemistry / Sensitivity analysis / Soil erosion / Uncertainty / Water pollution / Water Pollution - analysis / Water Pollution - prevention & control / Water pollution prevention / Watershed management / Watersheds