A negotiation support system for resolving an international trans-boundary natural resource conflict

    Authors

    K. Madani; O. M. Rouhani; A. Mirchi;S. Gholizadeh

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Environ. Modell. Softw.

    Keywords

    Caspian Sea; Negotiation support system; Conflict resolution; Resource; allocation; Combinatorial optimization; CASPIAN SEA DILEMMA; TABU SEARCH; COOPERATIVE ALLOCATION; WATER; OPTIMIZATION; ALGORITHMS; GAME; PERSPECTIVES; MANAGEMENT; CALIFORNIA; Computer Science, Interdisciplinary Applications; Engineering, ; Environmental; Environmental Sciences

    Abstract

    Post-Soviet legal governance regime of Caspian Sea - the largest inland body of water on earth - remains a source of conflict among the five coastal states of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. Although different division methods have been suggested for sharing the sea and its valuable resources, the actual gain of the countries is unclear as the proposed methods focus either on the oil and gas or the areal share of the parties. The Caspian Sea Negotiation Support System (Caspian Sea NSS) is developed in this study to delineate optimal boundaries for sharing the sea through simultaneous consideration of the countries' areal and resource shares under different sharing methods. This NSS is a complex optimization model, with a solver engine that provides reliable results with a reasonable computational effort using a heuristic method. The model is run under different division scenarios to evaluate the sensitivity of each party's gain and locations of nautical boundaries to the division rules and the economic values of the resources. Results show a high sensitivity of the optimal nautical boundaries to the division rules and an indirect relationship between the allocated area and resource shares. The findings highlight the necessity for considering utility shares in negotiations as opposed to adopting areal division rules which ignore the utilities and might result in unfair resource allocation. The main policy implication of the study is that clarification of the countries' resource and areal gain under any suggested legal regime for governing the Caspian Sea is essential to the success of the negotiations. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Environmental Modelling & Software

    Volume

    51

    Publication Date

    1-1-2014

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    240

    Last Page

    249

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000329561100022

    ISSN

    1364-8152

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