Temporal and spatial distribution of benefits and costs in river-basin schemes: A cooperative game approach

River-basin developments inevitably require participation by numerous entities (for example, riparians and external funding agencies). The division of the costs and benefits consequent to the scheme is further complicated by time schedules for implementation. In this paper the extension of cooperative game theory to temporal allocations is explored. The approach is illustrated with an example problem involving three riparians and two time periods. Propensities to disrupt are incorporated in the cooperative game in a form that permits the use of linear programming techniques. The results suggest that a considerable range of choices for decisions can be generated by systematic and random investigation near to optimal solutions.