Examining various control strategies for the nexus across water supply, power generation and environment systems in Hehuang, China

The propagation and accumulation of uncertainty within the water supply, power generation, and environment (WPE) nexus may induce unexpected failures. Effective control strategies are needed to reduce the failure risks. Optimal control of the WPE nexus is challenging because of the complex interconnections and the multiple stakeholders. This study employs stochastic dynamical systems to simulate interconnected WPE systems and compares the performance of centralized, decentralized, and hybrid control strategies. The WPE nexus within the Hehuang region of China is selected as a case study. The results show that all controllable agents are either selfish or generous, protecting or sacrificing their own security, respectively. Hybrid control is the most suitable strategy for realistic cases, because it balances the risks of selfish and generous agents. The manager's role is to balance or hedge the risks and costs across agents by adjusting their decision preferences. This involves changing the risks of generous agents and the control costs of selfish agents. The three control strategies have little impact on system bottlenecks, despite obvious changes in the trajectories of the highest and lowest risk contribution ratios. Overall, this study advances the understanding of different control strategies for the WPE nexus, helping to mitigate the failure risk and improve the management of real systems.