A Multi-Objective Decision Support Tool for Rural Basin Management

Abstract: Irrigation and fertilization of crops are common practices necessary for the viability of agricultural communities, but also responsible for water scarcity and water quality deterioration. The effort to cost-effectively manage fresh water availability and diffuse nutrient pollution at the same time needs to take into account trade-offs between economic and multiple environmental objectives. Agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs) are adaptation options for mitigating both environmental problems; however, their optimal allocation across the landscape becomes a multi-objective problem, with the need to identify the most suitable combinations. An efficient Decision Support Tool developed in MATLAB, able to assess the cost-effectiveness of irrigation and nutrient application management BMPs in reducing agricultural water use or nutrient losses to surface waters is used in this study. The tool integrates the process-based Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, which evaluates the effectiveness of the BMPs at different catchment locations, into a multi-objective genetic algorithm, which optimizes their selection and placement across the agricultural land. The nove