Decision Process in a Water Use Conflict in Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents a procedure for decision analysis in water use conflicts among irrigators. It seeks feasible compromise term among decision makers by using optimal results for different proposals of solutions. The process is developed by applying the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution. The case study is the existing conflict among Coqueiros canal water users. This 45 km canal belongs to a complex irrigation and drainage canal network and it is located at Campos dos Goytacazes municipality, in the northern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Its basin has a potential irrigable area of approximately 14,000 ha. Six hypothetical scenarios have been built, each one corresponding to different alternatives to the conflict solution. In addition, two different tendencies were adopted by the Management Institution (MI) in order to take care of the conflict. The first tendency takes into account that the MI has no explicit preferences for any of its actions. As for the second one, the MI shows explicit preferences for the scenarios which provide more income taxes. Some scenarios that reached the state of equilibrium were analyzed to provide solutions to the conflict.

Non-Cooperative Stability Definitions for Strategic Analysis of Generic Water Resources Conflicts

“…Except for the Nash non-cooperative solution concept (Nash 1951), additional non-cooperative stability definitions have been applied to water resources games only by a limited number of people who use the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) (Kilgour et al 1987;Fang et al 1993) and its associated decision support system (Fang et al 2003a, b;Hipel et al 2007Hipel et al , 2008b in their strategic studies (Okada et al 1999;Hipel et al 2003;Noakes et al 2003;Li et al 2004;Gopalakrishnan et al 2005;Ma et al 2005;Vieira et al 2005;Madani and Hipel 2007;Nandalal and Hipel 2007;Elimam et al 2008;Getirana et al 2008;Hipel et al 2008a;Getirana and Malta 2010). Non-cooperative stability definitions can facilitate predicating the likely outcomes of the game and the expected behavior of the players who give priority to their own objectives, rather than the system objective (as considered by cooperative methods).…”

A Monte-Carlo game theoretic approach for Multi-Criteria Decision Making under uncertainty

“…Games with discrete strategies, similar to the groundwater exploitation game (Fig. 2), can be analyzed using non-cooperative stability definitions such as the Nash Stability (NS) [67,68], General Metarationality (GMR) [69], Symmetric Metarationality (SMR) [69], Sequential Stability (SEQ) [70], Non-Myopic Stability (NMS) [71], and Limited-Move Stability (LMS) [72,73], applied in various water resources conflict resolution studies [74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81]. Application of these stability definitions is suggested here to predict or prescribe the final outcome(s) of MCDM problems in a game theoretic framework.…”

Planning Against Long Term Water Scarcity: A Fuzzy Multicriteria Approach

“…The technical component of such a Preparedness Plan should be based on a flexible, transparent and comprehensive multicriteria framework involving decision makers, stakeholders and the public in an attempt to reach a fair and sound evaluation of all viable alternatives (e.g. Getirana et al 2008;Wang et al 2008;Opricovic 2009). …”