Nonpoint-Source Water Quality Management Under Uncertainty Through an Inexact Double-Sided Chance-Constrained Model

This study proposed an inexact double-hand-side chance-constrained programming (IDCCP) method for nonpoint-source water quality management within an agricultural system. The IDCCP model can express interval parameters and double-hand-side random variables (e.g. nitrogen requirement of crop and nitrogen content of manure) simultaneously. To handle the double-sided random variables, a linear form of sufficient conditions for the IDCCP was deduced and proved. The performance of IDCCP was testified in the water quality management study case at three individual probabilities (θi = 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01), and compared with the corresponding ILP model. The results demonstrated that, the net benefit of the agriculture system decrease with a decreasing violating probability (θi), an increasing satisfaction of constraint (1-θi), or a lower risk of the system. Although it is the first application of the IDCCP method to nonpoint-resource water quality management, the IDCCP could also be applied to other environmental issues under such uncertainties.