Investigating strategies of an irrigation conflict

The understanding and modeling of human behavior in conflict situations is a challenge that researches investigate by developing, modifying and applying computational models. This paper aims to analyze how changes in the strategies of the various groups involved in a water use conflict can influence the decision process. The case study is an irrigation system supplied by a main canal in Rio de Janeiro State, Southeastern Brazil. Conflicts arise due to hydraulic constraints of the canal, resulting in water unavailability for some irrigators or damage to potentially irrigable lands caused by adjacent floods. The investigation strategy has been developed, considering three groups of irrigators. They can be geographically identified over the main canal's hydrographical limits. Six different scenarios are considered to analyze the conflict. These scenarios are built taking into account six different policies of water conveyance. Additionally, the decision of the state government related to water charging has been considered. The final decision is taken by the management institution of the canal which also has two different tendencies: to opt for the scenarios providing highest net profits or to be impartial in the final decision. The Graph Model for Conflict Resolution, which solves non-cooperative games based on graph theory, was adopted to evaluate all these strategies. The results show that, according to the level of exigency of irrigator groups, state government and management institution, the conflict can in fact, be resolved.