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

Simulation experiments were conducted with the negotiation support system (NSS) presented by Kronaveter and Shamir to evaluate its efficacy in improving the negotiation process, and in getting to an agreed cooperative solution in which both sides gain relative to a simple bargaining process. Two sets of experiments were conducted: (1) with real actors—participants who played the negotiation game; and (2) with simulated actors, where the negotiation process was run through more iterations using objectives and preferences provided by participants. A hypothetical case study was used, in which two adjacent countries are competing for water from a finite common source. The paper describes the experiments and results, and draws conclusions regarding the value of using a negotiation framework in which multiobjective evaluation (using the analytic hierarchy process) and economic evaluation (using the water allocation system) are embedded.