Mixed Fuzzy-Stochastic Programming Methods For Regional Ecosystem Planning

Numerous issues such as industrial development, increasing urbanization, population growth, and human-activity expansion, exacerbate the degeneration of ecosystem services; the damaged ecosystem can hinder the socio-economic development over a long-term period. Thus, effective planning of ecosystems is important for facilitating socio-economic development and eco-environmental sustainability. However, such a planning effort is complicated with uncertainties that exist in ecosystems, where multiple processes and multiple factors considered by decision makers. Therefore, the objective of this study is to develop advanced optimization approaches for planning regional ecosystem under uncertainty. Firstly, a superiority-inferiority two-stage stochastic programming (STSP) method is applied to a real case of planning regional ecosystem sustainable development in the City of Dongying, where ecosystem services valuation approaches are incorporated within the optimization process. Secondly, an interval stochastic credibility-constrained programming (ISCP) method is developed in the study of Dongying for tacking multiple uncertainties. Results of the STSP model reveal that, although large-scale reclamation projects can bring benefits to the local economy development, they can also bring with negative effects to the coastal ecosystem; among all industry activities oil field is the major contributor, who should be systematically limited. Land trading mechanism is introduced for planning the regional ecosystem’s sustainable development, where wetlands are buyers who would protect regional ecosystem components and self-organization and maintain its integrity. Results also show that uncertainty has an important role in successfully launching such a land trading program. Results of the ISCP model associated with credibility levels of resources availability and the effects of sensitive ecological factors on the ecosystem services and ecological benefit are analyzed. Results reveal that, a higher λ (i.e., eco-environmental priority) results in negative effect on the local economic development; moreover, results of sensitivity analysis reveal that runoff coefficient is the most sensitive ecological factors in the process of calculating the ecological benefit. Therefore, STSP and ISCP can provide scientific bases for the development of regional ecosystem sustainability strategies as well as the integration of economic and ecological activities.