Journal of Geological Society of India (Online archive from Vol 1 to Vol 78)

Aldo Dagnino ¹, Keith W. Hipel ¹, Niall M. Fraser ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, CA
2 Department of Management Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1, CA

Abstract

Environmental disputes arise due to opposing views of various groups about their environmental concerns and their economic or developmental interests. Bargaining constitutes a very effective mechanism to resolve environmental disputes and to reach a compromise solution among decision makers. A new game theoretic model for analyzing bargaining situations in which more than two decision makers are involved is presented in this paper. The model is referred to as the Cooperative Conflict Analysis System (CCAS) and is based on concepts from conflict analysis and bargaining theory. To demonstrate how the model can be effectively used in practice, it is applied to a real world environmental dispute involving the petrochemical groundwater contamination of the Cohansey Aquifer in the State of New Jersey in the U.S. Additionally, the Zeuthen's bargaining model is employed to analyze the conflict from a different perspective.

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