A multi-agent decision-making framework for evaluating water and environmental resources management scenarios under climate change

Kasra Motlaghzadeh; Ali Eyni; Massoud Behboudian; Parastoo Pourmoghim; Saeed Ashrafi; Reza Kerachian; Keith W Hipel

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161060

A multi-agent decision-making framework for evaluating water and environmental resources management scenarios under climate change

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Mar 15:864:161060. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161060. Epub 2022 Dec 21.

Authors

Kasra Motlaghzadeh¹, Ali Eyni², Massoud Behboudian³, Parastoo Pourmoghim³, Saeed Ashrafi⁴, Reza Kerachian⁵, Keith W Hipel⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of System Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
² Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.
³ School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Department of Engineering Systems and Environment, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
⁵ School of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: kerachian@ut.ac.ir.
⁶ Department of System Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada; Centre for International Governance Innovation and Balsillie School of International Affairs, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

PMID: 36565879
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161060

Abstract

This paper introduces a hierarchical multi-agent decision-making framework for Water and Environmental Resources Management Scenarios (WERMSs) under uncertain conditions of climate change and complex agent characteristics. The proposed framework utilizes three Game Theory concepts: the Stackelberg, Bayesian (Incomplete), and Imperfect games, in order to incorporate the hierarchical structure of the agents and the temporal distribution and accuracy of information between them. The methodology is applied to the Zarrinehroud River Basin (ZRB), the largest hypersaline lake in the Middle East. The area of the lake has decreased dramatically (about 50 %) during past decades causing various environmental, social, and economic problems. WERMSs were evaluated using qualitative and quantitative hydrological, social, economic, and ecological criteria under different climate change scenarios. The proposed methodology provides equilibriums in the decision-making process while considering different climate change scenarios. Applying the selected WERM results in an accumulated value of 2995 million m³ of water flow to the lake until 2049. Moreover, the lake's elevation reaches a new level of 1272.6 m above sea level at the end of the following 30 years, compared to the elevation of 1271.3 at the beginning of the evaluation period.

Keywords: Bayesian games; Climate change; Environmental resources management; Game theory; Imperfect information games; Multi-agent decision-making.