The management of natural resources is a challenge of significant social relevance. At the core of water policy is the need to foster a more rational use of the resource and this may be addressed by creating an efficient market of water rights [4]. However the design and operation of such a market is not an easy endeavor because it needs to coexist in a complex social and legal framework.
Most water management models are based on equational descriptions of aggregate supply and demand in a water basin [2] but few include an agent-based perspective. We explore an alternative approach in which individual and collective agents are an essential component because their behavior (and effects) may be influenced by policy-making. Our focus is on water-right demand and, in particular, on the type of legal and market mechanisms that may have an incidence on that, so that water use is efficient. In particular we acknowledge the following facts: (1) that many stakeholders are involved in the market; (2) that stakeholders have different and frequently conflicting objectives; (3) that stakeholders have decision-making capabilities; (4) that there is the possibility of establishing conventions that are applicable to the actions of stakeholders, and that stakeholders are capable of complying with those conventions; (5) that these stakeholders are autonomous to comply or not, with the conventions.
With respect to demand we build on two assumptions. First, we assume that water use is granted to individual agents or to groups of individuals through water rights that specify the amount of water, period and type of use granted, as well as the location where that water may be extracted. Second, we assume that these rights may be traded.1
Legislativo 1/200, BOE 176’ and the initiatives approved in 2001, 2004 and 2007– institute tradable water rights and the creation of ”water banks” during extreme draught conditions.
basin as a regulated open MAS and we bet on designing an agent-based market of water rights to micro-model model demand and foster efficient use.
We foresee the following potential uses for that market:
A test bed for agreement technologies. From a research perspective, our interest is on the role agreement plays in this social system, on the mechanisms that facilitate an agreement, on the management of agreements, on the normative organizational environments. Thus, we are designing a testbed to provide adequate inspiration for theoretical cogitations on agreement and for the development of the corresponding technologies [3]
A demand component of a sophisticated basin model to visualize and explore water management policies.
A prototype for an online market of water-rights.
OF WATER RIGHTS
In this paper we only sketch a bare-bones institutional framework that regiments the market and the main ancillary activities. For the construction of that framework we follow the IIIA Electronic Institution (EI) conceptual model [1] where an institutional is specified through two main blocks: one that deals with ontological components (the dialogical framework that specifies ontology, language, roles and information model) and another for deontological components (the performative structure for interaction models and procedural prescriptions and rules of behavior for commitment-making conventions).
We should mention that our framework captures those conventions that are imposed by current legislation and become regimented in the market, but it also captures new conventions to make the market agile and contract management realistic. Thus, for instance, we keep those roles sanctioned by current legislation, but add those that make a richer market or affect conflicts. Likewise, we keep the (totally ordered) seven types of water use, but Techniques for flexible on-demand individual and colspecify a water right by a 5-tuple (location, basin district, lective negotiation among humans or non-human actors use, volume, duration), and introduce the possibility of (i.e., agents and services). It is often the case that a water splitting (i.e. trading parts) and joining (i.e. trade a right holder is motivated to achieve a goal (buy or sell a combination) water rights. right) that is only possible by gaining the collaboration of
The procedural norms in mWater are specified through others (i.e., a federation of water right holders), then it a nested performative structure. The top one, mWaterPS, is required to generate an explicit mutually acceptable describes de overall market with five active scenes agreement through negotiation and to define detailed and two sub-structures: TradingTablesPS and Agreement- workflows that regulate the activities and combinations ManagementPS. Interactions in mWaterPS start with an of roles in the organization as well as their associated Entitlement process through which an individual may data flow. mWater also requires models and techniques become a rightful holder of a water right , followed by for judgement aggregation, argumentation, persuasion, a process of Accreditation, that brings that right into normative reasoning and agreement planning. the market. The third scene is a Trading Hall where Models for agreement conceptualization and patterns traders are notified of upcoming negotiations and the specification, e-Contracting. Relations among different reaching of agreements. Actual negotiations take place in agreements (sub-agreements), for example a situation in the scenes that belong to TradingTablesPS and once an which in order to get a water right transfer a buyer agreement on transfering a water right has been reached requires to contract a transportation resource from other it is ”managed” according to the market conventions users. captured in AgreementManagementPS. Two final scenes Techniques for initiation, coordination, and supervitake care of the (permanent) annulment and (temporary) sion of different forms of agreement, contracts and suspension of rights. The TradingTablesPS includes a grievances. Even when water right agreements or conscene schema for each trading mechanism. Currently, tracts are signed, the behavior of the participating entities a right-holder may opt for a standard double auction might not be completely determined as their autonomy or a closed bid or face-to-face negotiation but other and selfishness might cause them not to honour their mechanisms may be added as needed. AgreementMan- commitments if there is a potential gain in doing so. agementPS works roughly as follows: First of all, when Online Dispute Resolution environments. an agreement is reached, mWater staff checks if the An approach to summarize the life-cycle of agreeagreement satisfies some formal conditions and if so, ments in order to build long-term relationships between a transfer contract is signed. When a contract is active, the water rights market participants. other right-holders and external stakeholders may initiate a grievance procedure that impact the transfer agreement. IV. ACKNOWLEGEMENT AgreementManagementPS includes different scenes to address such grievances or for the disputes that may arise among co-signers. If things proceed smoothly, the right subsists until maturity.
mWater allows us to envision the following research opportunities: [1] Josep Arcos, Marc Esteva, Pablo Noriega, Juan Rodriguez
Organizational models that are dynamic and flexible eAlegcutirloanr,icanidnsCtiatrulteisonSsi.erraE.nEgningeienreienrgingApoppleincaetinovnirsonomfeAnrttsifiwciitahl enough to specify evolving regulated market scenarios. Intelligence, (18):191–204, 2005.
Because water’s unique characteristics, mWater requires [2] F. Martin de Santa Olalla, A. Dominguez, F. Ortega, A. Artigao, organization structures that restrict the way agreements eaansdteCrn.Fmabaenicrhoa.,Bsapyaeinsi.anEnnveitrwoonrmkesnitnalplManondienlglinaglaarngde aSqouftiwfearrien, are reached by fixing the social structure of the partic- 22:1089–1100, 2007. ipating entities, the capabilities of their roles and the [3] Juan A. Rodriguez-Aguilar. AGREEMENT TECHNOLOGIES. relationships among them (e.g. power, authority). Towards a new programming paradigm for agent-oriented tech
Reasoning about normative regulation and social annoldogMieusl.ti-PAogseitnitonSySsttaetmemse-nFt OaStEF-uMtuArSe o2f00S8o,ft2w0a0r8e. Engineering norms for negotiation and execution of agreements and [4] M. Thobani. Formal water markets: Why, when and how to contracts. On and off-line, from an individual agent’s introduce tradable water rights. The World Bank Research perspective and from the market design perspective. Observer, 12(2):161–179, 1997.
Dynamics of norms and norm adoption.