• Global tensions over the provision of water, food and energy are growing in response to demographic change and rapid economic development.

• Whilst water-food-energy challenges are becoming increasingly interconnected by complex ecological, socio-economic and sociopolitical factors, this complexity is not adequately reflected in assessments of these challenges, or in problem solving.

• There is a need to integrate multi-actor, multi-objective frameworks for interlinked water-food-energy challenges across scales and between scales, whilst accommodating uncertainty.

• There are multiple decision making tools available but their ability to replicate the capacity for compromise amongst stakeholders and objectives in real-world decision making processes is limited.

• Game theory can offer an alternative decision making approach by generating a set of near-optimal, feasible and ‘stable’ results, allowing the analysis of the various trade-offs involved, and of potential fallback positions. The outputs from such an approach can be practical in real-world situations when compared to the ‘optimal’, but often impracticable options, given by conventional multi-objective optimisation methods.

Using game theory to address modern resource management problems and infrastructure provision (pdf, 270 KB). Grantham Institute Briefing note No 2, September 2015. 6pp.