干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The rapid economic development and population growth in recent decades has led to the intensification of the pressure to provide a safe and adequate water supply in most arid regions of the world. This is due to deterioration of the ecological environment and irrational allocation of water resources which has led to the intensification of conflicts among adjacent areas.

It is necessary to allocate water resources scientifically for sustainable development. Whereas water resources allocation is usually a multi-objective problem, and has been of concern for lots of researchers. A simple water resources allocation model focuses on a certain aspect such as economic water consumption or ecological water demand. So It is necessary to optimize the model of water resources allocation.

In this paper, water resources allocation model is optimized based on the concept of human-water harmony. The idea of a human water harmony index (HWHI) diagnosis is presented for the first time. In this study we applied this method to the northwest arid region of China. The HWHI calculated values show that part of region is confronted with disharmony in human-water relationships. Through the application of HWHI diagnosis and the revision of preliminary water resources allocations, the final results are relatively satisfactory compared with the situation. We also use the method to calculate HWHI values in different regions for 10 years. These calculations verify the rationality of the water resources allocation based on the concept of HWHI.

The method based on HWHI could improve the relationship between human societies and their water supply. The data and method applied in this study could also help supervisors make decisions on regional development and effectively resolve conflicts in water resources.