Water-energy-food nexus-based irrigation planning for drought-prone agricultural regions: A case study of Gansu Province

Drought-prone irrigation districts increasingly face concurrent challenges of water scarcity, rising energy costs for water delivery and the obligation to maintain stable food production. This article develops an integrated water–energy–food nexus framework for irrigation planning in arid agricultural regions and applies it to a representative set of irrigation schemes in Gansu Province, north-western China. The framework links hydrological allocation, crop choice, irrigation scheduling and energy use for pumping within a unified multi-objective optimisation model. It evaluates trade-offs between reduced consumptive water use, lower energy demand, environmental flow protection and robust crop yields under recurrent drought. Scenario analysis shows that nexus-based irrigation plans can lower total irrigation withdrawals by around one fifth while reducing pumping energy requirements and sustaining staple grain output. The results demonstrate how coordinated management of water, energy and food objectives can enhance drought resilience in data-scarce, infrastructure-dependent farming landscapes. The approach is transferable to other semi-arid regions.