An Integrated Decision Support Framework for Incorporating Fairness and Stability Concerns into River Water Allocation

Self-enforceable and sustainable management strategies for transboundary rivers necessitate synchronously considering fairness and stability, which involves synthesizing the multidimensional nature of hydrology, environment, and socio-economy. Based on the equitable and reasonable principles of international resource distributions defined by the UN Watercourses Convention, this study proposed an integrated decision support framework by combining the multi-criteria decision making, the bankruptcy theory, and the power index with the aim of managing transboundary rivers fairly and sustainably. Subsequently, an optimization model based on this new framework was established by introducing the linear interval function to formulate the utility objective for all agents. Finally, using the Dongjiang River Basin in China to illustrate the availability of the proposed framework and optimization model. The results showed that the proposed methods could provide insights for transboundary river management through simultaneous consideration of the fairness and stability criteria.

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