Increasing water and energy demands represent an important challenge for long-term sustainability [1]. Resources management issues have been observed in all sectors, including agricultural systems [2], process industries [3], and housing complexes [4]. To overcome these problems, not only optimal management but also the proper allocation of resources is required [5]. In this regard, allocation schemes to attain fair solutions for multi-stakeholder systems have been reported recently [6]. Accounting for this, we propose an optimization framework to design a residential complex including different schemes (social welfare, Rawlsian welfare, and Nash scheme) to guide allocations among stakeholders. To find the optimal design of the complex, the objective functions are considered as stakeholders. The addressed system consists of an integrated residential complex involving distinct paths to satisfy demands as well as to treat waste discharges. The demands involve water, electricity, heating, and cooling. To satisfy these demands and treat the generated wastes, several alternatives are included (such as rainwater harvesting, water treatment, and recycling, cogeneration, gasification of solid wastes, and algae cultivation). To guide the optimal allocations with the minimum amount of resources (economic and environmental), the minimization of the total cost, of the freshwater consumption, and of the generated emissions are included as objective functions. The proposed methodology is general and can be applied to distinct case studies. However, to illustrate the results that can be attained through the formulation, we consider a case study of a residential complex in the city of Morelia, Mexico. Results reveal several optimal solutions that favor distinct stakeholders depending on the evaluated scheme. We also find that the only scheme that gives preference to two objectives is the Nash scheme. When specific weights for the objectives were included, alternative allocations guided simultaneously by the weighting factor and the scheme are found as well.
References:
[1] El-Halwagi MM (2017) Sustainable design through process integration: fundamentals and applications to industrial pollution prevention, resource conservation, and profitability enhancement., 2nd ed. Elsevier, New York.
[2] MunguÃa-López A del C, Sampat AM, Rubio-Castro E, Ponce-Ortega JM, Zavala VM (2019) Fairness-guided design of water distribution networks for agricultural lands. Comput. Chem. Eng. 130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2019.106547
[3] MunguÃa-López A del C, González-Bravo R, Ponce-Ortega JM (2019) Evaluation of carbon and water policies in the optimization of water distribution networks involving power-desalination plants. Appl. Energy 236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.12.053
[4] GarcÃa-Montoya M, Sengupta D, Nápoles-Rivera F, Ponce-Ortega JM, El-Halwagi MM (2016) Environmental and economic analysis for the optimal reuse of water in a residential complex. J. Clean. Prod. 130, 82–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.06.109
[5] OECD Compendium of Agri-environmental Indicators (Summary) 2013 in: OECD Compendium of Agri-Environmental Indicators. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264186217-sum-en
[6] Sampat AM, Zavala VM (2019) Fairness measures for decision-making and conflict resolution. Optim. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11081-019-09452-3
