Hybrid Economic-Environment-Ecology Land Planning Model under Uncertainty-A Case Study in Mekong Delta

The research on land natural resources as the leading factor in the Mekong Delta (MD) is insufficient. Facing the fragile and sensitive ecological environment of MD, how to allocate limited land resources to different land use types to obtain more economic benefits is a challenge that local land managers need to face. Three uncertainties in land use system, interval uncertainty, fuzzy uncertainty, and random uncertainty, are fully considered and an interval probabilistic fuzzy land use allocation (IPF-LUA) model is proposed and applied to multiple planning periods for MD. IPF-LUA considers not only the crucial socio-economic factors (food security, output of wood products, etc.) but also the ecological/environmental constraints in agricultural production (COD discharge, BOD5 discharge, antibiotic consumption, etc.). Therefore, it can effectively reflect the interaction among different aspects of MD land use system. The degree of environmental subordination is between 0.51 and 0.73, the net benefit of land system is between USD 23.31 x 10(9) and USD 24.24 x 10(9) in period 1, and USD 25.44 x 10(9) to 25.68 x 10(9) in period 2. The results show that the IPF-LUA model can help the decision-makers weigh the economic and ecological benefits under different objectives and work out an optimized land use allocation scheme.

Automated summary

The research on land natural resources in the Mekong Delta is inadequate. A model called IPF-LUA is proposed to consider uncertainties in land use system and help decision-makers optimize land use allocation schemes by balancing economic and ecological benefits.