Reservoirs built and financed by the Government in 1950’s—1970’s contributed enormously to the national macroeconomic development and local peoples livelihood during that period. However, the construction of those reservoirs has deteriorated the natural environment and resource supply, leading to massive poverty in associated regions that occurs today. Furthermore, the insufficient migrant aftercare and governmental subsidies have made it difficult for locals to rebuild their lives. Therefore, to reduce the poverty in those regions we need to develop integrated strategies to transform the current social, economical and ecological structures to a manageable and sustainable establishment.
As a case study, we analyzed the problems related to the poverty and eco-environmental sustainability in the Linshui Reservoir Region of Sichuan Province and established a sustainable development model using the uncertainty multi-objective planning framework. The results showed that to achieve the objective for the poverty reduction and eco-environmental improvement it was necessary to emigrate 8711 people, and establish 3188.24 hm2 terrace, 85.47hm² artificial grassland and 1413.07hm² economic forests and orchards. The prediction provides an optimal land use structure at the regional level that could not only improve the eco-environment, but also allow locals to have sustainable economical gain. We believe that these strategies can be the key measures for poverty reduction and environmental improvement in all ‘old reservoir’ regions.