Agent based modelling for water resource allocation in the transboundary Nile river

Ding, N, Erfani, R, Mokhtar, H and Erfani, T (2016) Agent based modelling for water resource allocation in the transboundary Nile river. Water (Switzerland), 8 (4). ISSN 2073-4441

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Abstract

© 2016 by the authors.Water resource allocation is the process of assessing and determining a mechanism on how water should be distributed among different regions, sectors and users. Over the recent decades, the optimal solution for water resource allocation has been explored both in centralised and decentralised mechanisms. Conventional approaches are under central planner suggesting a solution which maximises total welfare to the users. Moving towards the decentralised modelling, the techniques consider individuals as if they act selfishly in their own favour. While central planner provides an efficient solution, it may not be acceptable for some selfish agents. The contrary is true as well in decentralised solution, where the solution lacks efficiency leading to an inefficient usage of provided resources. This paper develops a parallel evolutionary search algorithm to introduce a mechanism in re-distributing the central planner revenue value among the competing agents based on their contribution to the central solution. The result maintains the efficiency and is used as an incentive for calculating a fair revenue for each agent. The framework is demonstrated and discussed to allocate water resources along the Nile river basin, where there exist eleven competing users represented as agents in various sectors with upstream-downstream relationships and different water demands and availability.