{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp06_four_proposal_generalization60_20260803","cell_id":"bounded_rivalry_governance__environmental_climate","arm":"COMPLETE_PROPOSAL_PORTFOLIO","candidate_id":"brg-climate-basin-portfolio-001","proposal_index":1,"version":0,"title":"Basin-Coupled Climate Adaptation Portfolio Contest","problem":"Municipalities, tribal governments, and local infrastructure authorities in one flood basin compete for a limited climate-adaptation fund. When applications are ranked project by project on local avoided loss, readiness, and stated benefit-cost ratios, an entrant can improve its rank by selecting easily documented assets, understating maintenance needs, or proposing defenses that redirect floodwater toward another jurisdiction. Repeated wins can also compound an applicant's grant-writing and modeling advantage. The rivalry therefore selects strong applications without necessarily selecting the combination of projects that best reduces basin-wide climate risk.","actors":["Climate-adaptation fund administrator","Municipal, tribal, and local infrastructure applicants within one hydrologically connected basin","Independent hydrologic and ecological evaluation panel","Delivery contractors and technical consultants","Residents, landowners, and vulnerable populations inside and downstream of proposed project areas","Watershed and habitat stewards","Independent appeal reviewer"],"observable_state":"In a funding round, applications seek mutually scarce capital and are scored separately, while submitted models use inconsistent assumptions and omit or weakly document changes in downstream flood depth, habitat condition, displacement exposure, long-term maintenance, and overlap with other proposed projects. Award concentration, repeated consultant-applicant pairings, unusually coordinated submissions, and discrepancies between promised and monitored outcomes are observable from applications, model files, award records, and post-project measurements.","consequence":"The fund can reward proposal-writing capacity, optimistic boundary choices, duplicated protection, or exported risk. Selected projects may reduce exposure in winning jurisdictions while leaving a weaker basin-wide portfolio, concentrating future access among repeat winners, or shifting residual loss onto nonparticipants.","affected_objective":"Use scarce adaptation capital to assemble a contestable portfolio that reduces climate-adjusted flood exposure across the connected basin while preserving ecological function, protecting affected populations, and avoiding risk transfer.","intervention":"Run each funding round as a bounded, multiple-award portfolio contest. Publish a frozen rulebook that states the discovery purpose, total funding constraint, eligibility rules, common climate and hydrologic assumptions, permitted evidence, prohibited conduct, scoring method, tie-breaks, conflicts policy, and appeal route. Require interoperable spatial and cost data and evaluate each proposal both independently and by its marginal contribution to candidate portfolios under undisclosed stress hydrographs. Score basin-wide exposure reduction, robustness across scenarios, ecological effects, distribution of residual risk, lifecycle maintenance, and deliverability; treat downstream risk transfer, unsupported displacement, double counting, model tampering, and undisclosed coordination as fouls rather than competitive accomplishments. Select several complementary projects subject to geographic and concentration constraints instead of awarding solely by individual rank. Give eligible applicants common modeling support and a fixed submission format to dampen the grant-writing arms race. Place a harm-remediation reserve or suitable liability requirement on awarded implementation work, not on initial application eligibility. Audit leading submissions, refer collusion-pattern anomalies for independent inquiry rather than treating them as proof, monitor realized outcomes, and revise or suspend the next round when the scoring rule ceases to track the stated purpose.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Rivalry purpose statement","domain_realization":"Use competition to reveal locally informed adaptation designs and credible costs, while selecting projects for basin-wide risk reduction rather than jurisdictional prestige."},{"archetype_element":"Scarce prize or selection constraint","domain_realization":"A fixed adaptation-capital budget and limited implementation capacity distributed across several portfolio awards."},{"archetype_element":"Competitor eligibility boundary","domain_realization":"Public, tribal, or community-accountable basin entities with authority over a proposed site, disclosed partners, minimum technical documentation, and acceptance of common data and monitoring rules."},{"archetype_element":"Contest arena boundary","domain_realization":"Design refinement, cost reduction, land-access preparation, and evidence development are allowed; risk export, double counting, fabricated data, intimidation, concealed conflicts, and collusive bid division are prohibited."},{"archetype_element":"Performance metric and scoring basis","domain_realization":"Audited marginal contribution to a basin portfolio across common climate stress cases, with separate constraints for ecological harm, distributional burden, maintenance feasibility, and deliverability."},{"archetype_element":"Fair process and due process layer","domain_realization":"Rules and model assumptions are frozen before submission; evaluators disclose conflicts; applicants receive score reasons and may file a time-bounded challenge with an independent reviewer."},{"archetype_element":"Anti-sabotage and anti-collusion guardrail","domain_realization":"Common data provenance, model reproducibility checks, a published foul schedule, and cross-round anomaly screening protect the field; anomaly flags trigger inquiry but are not verdicts."},{"archetype_element":"Externality and spillover boundary","domain_realization":"Hydrologically connected downstream areas, habitat effects, displacement exposure, construction impacts, and lifecycle maintenance are inside the evaluation boundary, with implementation reserves available for attributable remediation."},{"archetype_element":"Escalation and arms-race damper","domain_realization":"A fixed submission format, common modeling service, limited clarification rounds, and capped sponsor-funded technical assistance reduce advantage from escalating application expenditure."},{"archetype_element":"Winner power and lock-in review","domain_realization":"Awards confer no automatic priority in later rounds; project data enter a shared repository, concentration is reviewed, and later rounds reopen eligibility to qualified challengers."},{"archetype_element":"Learning and recalibration loop","domain_realization":"Post-implementation comparison of promised and realized basin effects changes future stress tests, weights, eligibility rules, reserves, or the decision to continue using rivalry."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"contest_rulebook","role":"Freezes eligibility, common assumptions, allowed actions, scoring, tie-breaks, conflicts rules, fouls, and appeals before applicants are known.","counterfactual_removal":"Without it, evaluators could alter boundaries or weights after seeing applicants, and entrants could not distinguish legitimate optimization from prohibited risk transfer."},{"mechanism_slug":"tender_or_rfp_process","role":"Creates a published, pre-qualified, documented, and contestable solicitation for adaptation projects.","counterfactual_removal":"Without it, the fund would revert to discretionary project sponsorship or an informal grant process with weaker comparability and challenge rights."},{"mechanism_slug":"multiple_award_or_portfolio_selection","role":"Chooses complementary projects by their marginal addition to basin coverage and resilience rather than crowning the highest isolated score.","counterfactual_removal":"Without it, individually strong but redundant or hydrologically conflicting projects could exhaust the budget and concentrate implementation capacity."},{"mechanism_slug":"externality_bond_or_liability_rule","role":"Requires awarded implementers to secure remediation for attributable downstream, habitat, construction, or maintenance harms while avoiding an upfront barrier for applicants.","counterfactual_removal":"Without secured liability, a winning project could export harm and leave affected communities or the fund to finance remediation after the award is spent."},{"mechanism_slug":"anti_collusion_monitoring","role":"Pools cross-round submission, pricing, consultant, and geographic-allocation patterns to identify anomalies for independent investigation.","counterfactual_removal":"Without monitoring, nominally separate applicants or contractors could coordinate territorial divisions, cover proposals, or prices while appearing compliant in each isolated round."},{"mechanism_slug":"sabotage_or_foul_penalty_schedule","role":"Predefines graduated responses to data fabrication, double counting, model tampering, concealed conflicts, prohibited coordination, and deliberate risk omission.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a known and consistently applied penalty schedule, prohibited conduct could remain profitable whenever its ranking benefit exceeds an uncertain enforcement cost."},{"mechanism_slug":"challenger_access_window","role":"Reopens later funding rounds to qualified entrants, prevents automatic renewal, and permits new evidence to displace incumbent project types or delivery partners.","counterfactual_removal":"Without recurring access, early winners could convert accumulated data, consultant relationships, and administrative familiarity into durable control of later rounds."},{"mechanism_slug":"post_contest_impact_review","role":"Compares modeled and realized basin outcomes, examines spillovers and award concentration, and mandates specified rule changes or suspension criteria for the next round.","counterfactual_removal":"Without review, metric failures and transferred harms would not feed back into contest redesign, allowing repeated selection by a defective proxy."}],"causal_chain":["A fixed adaptation budget makes applicants rivals for scarce awards.","Project-local scoring gives each applicant an incentive to maximize documented local benefit and minimize visible cost, including by narrowing system boundaries.","Because flood pathways cross jurisdictions, strategies that improve one application's score can transfer exposure, duplicate protection, or weaken ecological function elsewhere.","A frozen rulebook, common data assumptions, reproducibility checks, foul definitions, and appeal rights bound the acceptable routes to winning.","Portfolio scoring evaluates marginal basin-wide contribution under shared and partly undisclosed stress cases, making complementary, robust risk reduction more valuable than isolated headline benefits.","Multiple awards and concentration limits preserve alternative implementers and reduce winner lock-in, while common support and submission constraints dampen application-spending escalation.","Secured implementation liability brings attributable spillovers back into each winner's payoff, and monitoring makes concealed coordination or manipulation more likely to trigger investigation.","Post-contest comparison of predicted and realized outcomes reveals whether winning remained coupled to basin-wide adaptation value and supplies concrete revisions or a stop decision for the next round."],"baseline":"A conventional competitive adaptation-grant round that scores each application independently on applicant-supplied local benefits, cost, readiness, and narrative quality, then funds proposals from the top of the ranking until the budget is exhausted. Compliance review occurs project by project, with limited portfolio optimization, downstream stress testing, secured spillover remediation, cross-round conduct monitoring, or systematic redesign from realized outcomes.","nearest_rivals":["Formula allocation by population, exposure, or deprivation: reduces proposal competition and may improve predictability, but does not use rivalry to discover project designs or assemble a complementary basin portfolio.","Integrated basin plan produced by a central technical authority: can optimize connected interventions directly, but depends on the authority's information and does not preserve a governed discovery contest among local alternatives.","Ordinary multi-criteria grant scoring: can add climate, ecological, and equity criteria, but still ranks proposals independently and lacks portfolio marginality, bounded conduct, anti-collusion monitoring, secured spillover responsibility, and recurring contestability.","Collaborative watershed planning with consensus allocation: foregrounds coordination across jurisdictions, but may suppress useful comparative testing and does not govern a scarce-prize rivalry when agreement cannot remove the funding constraint."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal's distinguishing claim is limited to governance structure: when hydrologically connected applicants must still compete for scarce adaptation capital, selecting an audited multi-project portfolio under common basin stress tests, enforceable spillover boundaries, due process, anti-abuse controls, and ex-post recalibration keeps the path to winning more directly tied to basin contribution than isolated project ranking. Whether it does so in practice remains untested.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"The adaptation-fund administrator may authorize a nonbinding shadow evaluation; existing statutory authorities, land rights, permitting bodies, and independent appeal functions retain their current powers. Final funding or construction decisions remain with the bodies already authorized to make them.","authorized_first_step":"Re-score one completed funding round in shadow mode using its archived submissions, common basin boundaries, a preregistered portfolio rubric, conflict-screened evaluators, and no change to past awards. Compare ranking changes, inferred risk transfers, portfolio overlap, data sufficiency, evaluator disagreement, and administrative burden.","excluded_actions":["Changing an existing award or applicant entitlement","Approving construction, land acquisition, relocation, water diversion, or ecosystem disturbance","Using an anti-collusion anomaly as proof of misconduct or imposing a penalty without investigation and due process","Collecting new personal data beyond what the shadow evaluation requires and is authorized to use","Releasing confidential proposal, infrastructure-security, tribal, or household-level vulnerability information","Requiring an applicant-level bond that would condition access to the shadow exercise","Automating final funding decisions from the portfolio score"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the shadow exercise if evaluators cannot reproduce material inputs, basin effects cannot be estimated without unsupported assumptions, protected or downstream groups are made less visible by aggregation, confidential data cannot be safeguarded, or results are excessively sensitive to reasonable rubric variations. Discard the shadow ranking as a decision instrument, retain only an access-controlled audit record and documented failure reasons, and continue the authorized baseline process unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The strongest counterevidence would be that independent post-project observations show the baseline ranking already predicts basin-wide exposure reduction, ecological condition, distribution of residual risk, and lifecycle delivery at least as consistently as the shadow portfolio method, while application behavior shows no material risk transfer, duplication, concentration, manipulation, or coordinated noncompetition.","problem_falsifier":"The inferred problem is falsified for the tested setting if applicants are not meaningfully rivalrous, project effects are hydrologically independent, the funding constraint does not force selection, and documented downstream spillovers, strategic boundary choices, duplicated benefits, application arms-race behavior, and repeat-winner advantage are absent or immaterial.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified as a useful decision design if blinded evaluators cannot apply it reproducibly; reasonable model or weight choices yield unstable portfolios; the portfolio score does not better discriminate connected-system outcomes than baseline scoring; safeguards systematically exclude less-resourced applicants; or operating the contest costs more in delay, burden, and foregone action than the decision information it produces.","risks":["Common hydrologic models may create false precision or conceal locally known pathways.","Applicants may learn to game portfolio metrics, ecological proxies, or undisclosed stress-test distributions.","Eligibility, data, and modeling requirements may disadvantage smaller or historically under-resourced applicants.","Shared technical support may become a bottleneck or a source of evaluator influence.","Liability reserves may raise implementation costs or exclude capable smaller contractors if poorly calibrated.","Anomaly screens may generate false suspicions from common cost shocks, shared consultants, or geographic constraints.","Portfolio optimization may become opaque, weakening legitimacy even when mathematically consistent.","Multiple awards may dilute resources below viable implementation scale.","Climate conditions and land use may change between scoring and outcome review, confounding attribution.","Appeals and audits may delay time-sensitive adaptation work."]},"next_evidence_step":"Conduct the authorized shadow replay on one completed round. Before examining applicant identities or outcomes, freeze the basin boundary, stress cases, portfolio objective, ecological and distributional constraints, missing-data rules, evaluator protocol, and sensitivity tests. Have conflict-screened evaluators score de-identified submissions, then compare the baseline and shadow selections against the limited post-project observations already available. Report data gaps, rank and portfolio stability, inferred spillovers, concentration, disagreements, workload, and safeguard failures without changing awards or claiming an effect.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"No comparative assessment was performed; the candidate was derived only from the supplied archetype, authored mechanisms, and environmental-climate domain card.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Initial complete proposal specification","Concrete scarce-prize rivalry in a coupled environmental system","Observable problem state and bounded causal chain","Explicit authority limits, safeguards, falsifiers, and first evidence step"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; no parent proposal","Mapped project-level grant rivalry onto basin-wide climate adaptation portfolio selection"],"operational_changes":["Specified a nonbinding shadow replay as the first authorized action","Defined eligibility, scoring, portfolio selection, foul handling, liability, appeals, monitoring, and halt conditions"],"evidence_changes":["Prior art remains unsearched","Limited initial evidence to archived submissions and already available post-project observations from one completed round"],"claim_changes":["Made no claim of novelty, prevalence, demand, effect size, or demonstrated effectiveness","Restricted the contrastive claim to the proposed governance structure and marked practical performance as untested"]}}