Stability analysis of grey compromise programming and its application to watershed land-use planning

Multiple conflicting objectives characterize the current water resources management systems. In particular, the conflict between environmental protection of reservoir water quality and economic development by different uses of land within the reservoir watershed is a problem that receives wide attention in many developing countries. The optimal balance between carrying capacity of watershed land-use and assimilative capacity of reservoir water quality remains unclear. However, the inherent uncertainties of both environmental and economic goals and parameter values may result in additional difficulties in public decision making. This paper presents a new methodology-the grey compromise programming (GCP) method-in which the parameter uncertainties in the optimization process are specifically considered as interval numbers and the related stability theory is proved as well. The case study is drawn from the optimal planning of land-use programme in the Tweng-Wen reservoir watershed in Taiwan.