A novel bankruptcy approach is proposed for resolving transboundary riverconflicts in which the total water demand or claim of the riparian partiesis more than the available water. Bankruptcy solution methods can allocatethe available water to the conflicting parties with respect to their claims.Four commonly used bankruptcy methods in the economic literature are usedhere to develop new river bankruptcy solution methods for allocating waterto the riparian parties of river systems. Given the non-uniform spatial andtemporal distribution of water across river basins, the proposedsolution methods are formulated as non-linear network flow optimizationmodels to allocate water with respect to time sensitivity of waterdeliveries at different locations in a river network during the planninghorizon. Once allocation optimization solutions are developed, theiracceptability and stability must be evaluated. Thus, a new bankruptcyallocation stability index (BASI) is developed for evaluating theacceptability of river bankruptcy solutions. To show how the proposed riverbankruptcy framework can be helpful in practice, the suggested methods areapplied to a real-world transboundary river system with eight ripariansunder various hydrologic regimes. Stability analysis based on the proposedstability evaluation method suggests that the acceptability ofallocation rules is sensitive to hydrologic conditions and demand values.This finding has an important policy implication suggesting that fixedallocation rules and treaties may not be reliable forsecuring cooperation over transboundary water resources as they arevulnerable to changing socioeconomic and climatic conditions as well ashydrologic non-stationarity.
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