Insights from negotiations models on water sharing conflicts in the development of water basin plans

Abstract

Collective decision making and negotiated outcomes are promoted for the water sector in order to increase ownership, commitment and participation. Negotiation processes for the development of water basin plans are, however, complex and tedious. This paper investigates the contribution of negotiation theory in facilitating basin plan development as a collective decision-making process. It outlines the typical water sharing conflict during the development of a basin plan. Later, it explains benefits from the approaches of game theory and complexity science in framing the negotiation process. Knowledge from selected, commonly used models in the study of water sharing conflicts at the basin level is summarised and compared. These models provide useful and complementary insights into the value of participation and the careful design of the negotiation process by using negotiation support systems.