Economic benefit evaluation of water resources allocation in transboundary basins based on particle swarm optimization algorithm and cooperative game model—A case study of Lancang-Mekong River Basin

The present work aims to find the optimal solution of Nash Equilibrium (NE) in the traditional Game Theory (GT) applied to water resources allocation. Innovatively, this paper introduces Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) into GT to propose a cooperative game model to solve the NE problem. Firstly, the basic theory of the PSO algorithm and cooperative game model is described. Secondly, the PSO-based cooperative game model is explained. Finally, the PSO-based cooperative game model is compared with the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to test the performance. Besides taking the countries in Lancang Mekong River Basin as the research object, this paper discusses each country’s water consumption and economic benefits under different cooperation patterns. Then, a series of improvement measures and suggestions are put forward accordingly. The results show that the average server occupancy time of the PSO-based cooperative game model is 78.46% lower than that of GA, and the average waiting time is 79.24% lower than that of the GA. Thus, the model reported here has higher computational efficiency and excellent performance than the GA and is more suitable for the current study. In addition, the multi-country cooperation mode can obtain more economic benefits than the independent water resource development mode. This model can quickly find the optimal combination of 16 cooperation modes and has guiding significance for maximizing the benefits of cross-border water Resource Utilization. This research can provide necessary technical support to solve the possible contradictions and conflicts between cross-border river basin countries and build harmonious international relations.