Negotiation Support for Cooperative Allocation of a Shared Water Resource: Methodology

Abstract

The negotiation support system (NSS) proposed in this paper is designed to aid two parties in their negotiations for allocation of water from a shared water resource. The NSS has several components which are activated in a series of negotiating iterations: (1) creation/modification by each party of its utility function, using the analytic hierarchy process to structure and weight a set of objectives; (2) the water allocation system model for optimal economic allocation of water among districts and users in a specified territory, subject to physical, hydrological, legal, administrative and other constraints, which can be run by each party alone or by both jointly; and (3) a procedure for moving jointly in utility space toward efficient (Pareto) solutions in the current negotiation iteration, identification of the Nash equilibrium point on this frontier, and then seeking to move from this point beyond this temporary efficient frontier and create new values for both parties. The negotiation proceeds by alternating between individual analysis (each party in private) and joint problem solving by examination of alternatives in utility space. The NSS has been tested and evaluated in a series of simulations, which are the topic of a companion paper.