The improved bankruptcy method and its application in regional water resource allocation

Abstract A relatively simple but effective approach to water allocation is required for governors to deal with more severe and frequent water shortage problems. In this study, an improved bankruptcy method was developed to conveniently allocate water resources among riparian areas. Users’ contributions to total water resources, their water-use efficiencies, and the minimum satisfied water demand were included in the bankruptcy method and used to adjust water allocation results. Additionally, contribution and efficiency factors were assigned different weight coefficients to determine how these factors influence the allocation results in a region-specific manner. The impact of minimum satisfied water demand on the final water allocation results was also evaluated. This proposed method was applied in the Dongjiang River basin, South China. The results showed that: (1) cities will be assigned with different allocation priority based on considered factors; (2) cities react with different sensitivities and changing directions under the altering of weight coefficients of contribution and efficiency factors, resulting in diverse but finite adjustable ranges of the final allocation results; and (3) higher minimum satisfied water demand reduced the allocation differences among cities. The improved method yields reasonable and flexible allocation solutions to meet requirements of complex water allocation problems, and shows promise for future application to more regions.