Assessing the value of cooperation and information exchange in large water resources systems by agent‐based optimization

摘要: [1] Many large-scale water resources systems, especially in transboundary contexts, are characterized by the presence of several and conflicting interests managed multiple, institutionally independent decision makers. These systems often studied adopting a centralized approach based on assumption full cooperation information exchange among involved parties. Such perspective is conceptually interesting to quantify best achievable performance but might have little practical impact given real political institutional setting. In this work, we propose novel decision-analytic framework multiagent model analyze different levels multiple The Zambezi River basin used as case study. According proposed agent-based optimization approach, each agent represents maker, whose decisions defined an explicit problem considering only agent's local interests. economic value estimated comparing noncooperative setting, where agents act independently, with first basic level cooperation, i.e., coordination, exchange. also comparison ideal, fully cooperative management system. Results show that obtained complete exchange, allows downstream better adapt upstream behaviors. depends objective considered, coordination be particularly beneficial environmental