Multi-Objective Optimization for the Security of Water-Energy-Food Nexus

Climate change, population growth, and rapid urbanization are seriously threatening the security of water, energy, and food resources, which are fundamental for the human survival and sustainable development. They are inextricably interrelated and the term WaterEnergy-Food Nexus, or other permutations of it, refers to the synergies and trade-offs among the three sectors. Nexus planning and management for the overall security of the system are very complicated because of conflicting objectives among sectors and, at the same time, unavoidable. For this reason, much of the scientific research that studies sustainability problems and the nexus system, focuses on multiobjective optimization problems. The present work turns a linear multi-period socioeconomic single-objective problem, already existing in the literature, into a multiobjective problem, with the aim of finding better solutions than the single-objective one. The weighted Global Criterion Method was adopted and a real-world Water-Energy-Food Nexus scenario was considered.