Abstract Water is the backbone of socio-economic and environmental systems. Increasing demand and unpredictable availability due to anthropogenic climate change is making water an extremely scarce resource in different parts of the world, when the resources facing scarcity are shared between different administrative boundaries, conflicts could arise. Transboundary river basins are typical examples. Water sharing problems within these transboundary river basins are very difficult to solve because of the socio-economic and environmental asymmetries among the water claiming stakeholders. In addition, water-sharing problems have a systemic feature that evolves through time. Previous studies did not comprehensively capture these features. This article attempts to fill this research gap by combining the evolutionary game and system dynamic model to predict the equilibrium outcomes of different strategic scenarios. When the riparian states choose polarizing strategies, the equilibrium evolves either quickly, initiated by the countries’ need to avoid the loss that could result from water conflict or very slowly if the countries opt to maintain the benefits that result from their polarized strategies. In the scenario where both choose a tolerance strategy, the equilibrium evolves very slowly. If either of the countries chooses a polarizing strategy irrespective of its neighbor choosing a compromise strategy, the equilibrium evolves much faster. The results depicted that the equilibrium under different scenarios does not always lead to concessions. Therefore, the countries should strengthen the cooperation in water resource management to ensure that a zero-sum game and the inception of a new strategic evolution are prevented.

中文翻译：

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l 跨界水资源共享问题；使用进化博弈和系统动力学的理论分析

摘要 水是社会经济和环境系统的支柱。由于人为气候变化导致需求增加和不可预测的可用性使水成为世界不同地区极其稀缺的资源，当面临稀缺的资源在不同的行政边界之间共享时，可能会出现冲突。跨界流域就是典型的例子。由于要求水资源的利益相关者之间的社会经济和环境不对称，这些跨界流域内的水资源共享问题很难解决。此外，水资源共享问题具有随时间演变的系统性特征。以前的研究没有全面捕捉这些特征。本文试图通过结合演化博弈和系统动力学模型来预测不同战略情景的均衡结果来填补这一研究空白。当沿岸国选择两极分化战略时，平衡要么迅速演变，要么是由于国家需要避免可能因水冲突而造成的损失，要么如果各国选择保持其两极分化战略所带来的利益，则进展非常缓慢。在双方都选择容忍策略的情况下，均衡发展非常缓慢。如果任何一个国家选择两极分化策略而不管其邻国选择妥协策略，则均衡发展得更快。结果表明，不同情景下的均衡并不总是导致让步。所以，