Centralized and decentralized management of water resources with multiple users

Abstract

In this study, we investigate two water inventory management schemes with multiple users in a dynamic game-theoretic structure over a two-period planning horizon. We first investigate the groundwater inventory management problem (i) under the decentralized management scheme, where each user is allowed to pump water from a common aquifer making usage decisions individually in a noncooperative fashion, and (ii) under the centralized management scheme, where users are allowed to pump water from a common aquifer with the supervision of a social planner. We consider the case of n non-identical users distributed over a common aquifer region. Furthermore, we consider different geometric configurations overlying the aquifer, namely, the strip, ring, double-layer ring, multi-layer ring and grid configurations. In each configuration, general analytical results of the optimal groundwater usage are obtained and numerical examples are discussed. We then consider the surface and groundwater conjunctive use management problem with two non-identical users in a dynamic game-theoretic structure over a planning horizon of two periods. Optimal water allocation and usage policies are obtained for each user in each period under the decentralized and centralized settings. Some pertinent hypothetical numerical examples are also provided.