Optimizing resilience at water-energy-food nexus

In this work, a general methodology for optimizing the resilience of engineering systems is presented. A case study for a region where the relation between water, energy, food nexus is very important is considered. The mathematical formulation is a non-linear programming model that incorporates the optimization of the resilience for the water-energy-food nexus. The objectives of the model are to maximize the resilience of the system, which is calculated based on the total profit, and to minimize the CO2 emissions. The results show that it is possible to obtain scenarios in which there is an appropriate use of the nexus. Similarly, by quantifying resilience, the scenarios that present greater difficulties to have a good functionality can be identified; therefore, different alternatives can be proposed to improve the conditions of the scenarios.