Companion Modeling, Conflict Resolution, and Institution Building: Sharing Irrigation Water in the Lingmuteychu Watershed, Bhutan

By T. R. Gurung, François Bousquet, Guy Trébuil. 2006

169 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We used multi-agent systems (MAS), following the companion modeling method, to facilitate water management negotiations in Bhutan. We show how this methodology helped resolve a conflict over the sharing of water resources by establishing a concrete agreement and creating an institution for collective watershed management. The conceptual model begins with a role-playing game (RPG). The stakeholders play the game, thus validating the proposed environment, the behavioral rules, and the emergent properties of the game. It is then relatively easy to translate the RPG into computerized MAS that allow different scenarios to be explored. After this first step in the MAS model, stakeholders then create an institution. A second model is developed to facilitate this process. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the models and reality, as well as the use of MAS as a mediation tool and the social process. (Resume d'auteur)

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/21d59e5e9600002f3aabdb43381b572a17809efd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

In Political Science and International Relations

Michel E. Etienne

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Steps towards sustainable harvest of Ophiocordyceps sinensis in Bhutan (2009, background): “There has already been successful delegation of similar decision-making powers to the local level in Bhutan (e.g. Gurung et al. 2006).”
ARDI: a co-construction method for participatory modelling in natural resources management (2011, background): “…processes in social change has barely been evaluated, but recent work on companion modeling (Etienne 2010) provides evidence of interesting changes in social representation of environmental issues (Mathevet et al. 2011) or in social organization to face environmental problems (Gurung et al. 2006).”
The challenge of understanding decisions in experimental studies of common pool resource governance (2011, background): “…about broader context and micro-situational variables while at the same time “facilitate dialogue, shared learning, and collective decision making through interdisciplinary and “implicated” research to strengthen the adaptive management capacity of local communities” (Gurung et al., 2006 [p. 2]).”