A fuzzy cooperative game theoretic approach for multinational water resource spatiotemporal allocation

Abstract

Water resource allocation in multinational river basins has been a major concern for all riparian countries. From the perspective of cooperative and sustainable water resource development, considering the spatiotemporal characteristics of the water demand, namely, the priority of water use due to the geographic location of each riparian country, the seasonality of water demand, and the differences in the net utility of water utilization, this paper constructs a fuzzy coalition game model for multinational water resource allocation and provides the optimal allocation strategy using the example of the Lancang-Mekong River. The study indicates that considering the geographic locations and the differences in the water utility of each country compared with the initial allocation strategy based on agricultural water demand, the cooperative strategy increases the allocated water resources in high-utility countries (expect countries near the estuary) and the overall water utility in the entire basin. Then, considering the seasonality of the water resource reallocation, the fuzzy coalition among riparian countries further increases the net water utility of each country and achieves the optimal allocation. As the preconditions for the establishment of cooperative relationships, upstream countries need to transfer partial water rights to downstream countries in certain seasons. The basic idea that is presented in this paper, the fuzzy coalition model of water resource allocation with spaciotemporal constraints, can be applied to the water allocation of other multinational rivers.