{"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-drought-withdrawal-003","proposal_index":3,"version":0,"title":"Ecologically Floored Auction for Drought-Season River Withdrawals","problem":"During a declared low-flow period, irrigators, utilities, and industrial facilities compete for a limited volume of discretionary river withdrawal. Under seniority rules, first-come emergency approvals, or bilateral transfers, users can improve their position by reserving more water than they use, accelerating withdrawal before further restrictions, concealing return-flow differences, or controlling conveyance access. The rivalry can therefore reward legal position, timing, and strategic hoarding rather than the uses that can derive the greatest declared value from scarce water without crossing ecological or public-safety boundaries.","actors":["River-basin water authority","Irrigation districts and agricultural water users","Municipal water utilities","Industrial water users","Tribal governments and other holders of protected water rights","Environmental and fisheries agencies","Downstream communities and water users","Independent auction administrator and appeal reviewer","Metering, hydrologic, and ecological monitoring teams"],"observable_state":"During low-flow restrictions, gauge readings, withdrawal meters, return-flow estimates, reservation records, permit applications, transfers, bid patterns, and ecological indicators show who reserves and consumes water, when and where withdrawals occur, how much returns to the river, whether allocations remain unused, whether related bidders divide time or geography, and whether flow, temperature, water-quality, or habitat guardrails are approached or crossed.","consequence":"Strategic reservation and accelerated extraction can leave water idle in one entitlement while another high-value use is curtailed, concentrate access among incumbents, obscure the net consumptive effect of withdrawals, and transfer ecological or downstream costs outside the allocation decision. A repeated drought response can alternate between extraction races, privileged bilateral deals, and coordinated noncompetition.","affected_objective":"Allocate only the discretionary portion of drought-season river capacity among competing uses while preserving essential human supply, protected rights, minimum ecological conditions, downstream safeguards, and future contestability.","intervention":"After legally protected rights, essential household supply, emergency reserves, and a precautionary ecological-flow floor are placed outside the contest, divide the remaining discretionary capacity into short-duration, location-specific withdrawal lots expressed as estimated net consumptive effect rather than gross diversion. Admit only metered users with disclosed control relationships, enforceable return-flow assumptions, compliance standing, and contingency plans. Run recurring sealed-bid auctions under a frozen rulebook, using a declared multi-unit payment rule and externality adjustments for withdrawal timing, location, return flow, and monitored ecological stress. Cap the lots any bidder or commonly controlled group may hold, prohibit speculative resale outside an approved exchange, and require rapid release of unused lots. Publish aggregate clearing results while protecting bid confidentiality; provide calculation challenges and independent appeals. Require winning users to post proportionate compliance security or insurance, monitor meter and ecological data, screen cross-round bidding patterns for possible coordination, and apply graduated penalties only after investigation. Reopen unused and next-period capacity to challengers, then review realized withdrawals and environmental conditions before recalibrating or suspending the next round.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"Rivalry purpose statement","domain_realization":"Use bounded competition to reveal users' relative willingness to conserve or pay for scarce discretionary withdrawal capacity during a low-flow period."},{"archetype_element":"Scarce prize or selection constraint","domain_realization":"Short-duration, location-specific lots representing the basin's remaining discretionary net consumptive capacity after protected floors are reserved."},{"archetype_element":"Competitor eligibility boundary","domain_realization":"Metered and legally authorized users with disclosed affiliates, defined return-flow pathways, compliance standing, payment capacity, and an approved curtailment plan."},{"archetype_element":"Contest arena boundary","domain_realization":"Conservation, process changes, lawful bidding, and approved transfers are allowed; meter tampering, affiliate concealment, bid coordination, speculative hoarding, unapproved resale, and withdrawal outside an awarded lot are prohibited."},{"archetype_element":"Performance metric and scoring basis","domain_realization":"Lots clear through the declared bid-payment rule after bids are adjusted for estimated net consumption and location- and time-specific spillover charges, subject to nonprice safety constraints."},{"archetype_element":"Fair process and due process layer","domain_realization":"Eligibility, lot definitions, payment calculations, externality adjustments, tie-breaks, disclosure rules, and appeal deadlines are frozen before bids; calculation and eligibility errors can be independently challenged."},{"archetype_element":"Anti-sabotage and anti-collusion guardrail","domain_realization":"Affiliate disclosure, meter integrity checks, cross-round bid screens, approved transfer channels, and graduated penalties constrain territorial division, cover bids, data manipulation, and foreclosure of conveyance access."},{"archetype_element":"Externality and spillover boundary","domain_realization":"Essential supply, protected rights, ecological flow, downstream conditions, return-flow location and timing, water quality, and attributable remediation remain inside the governance boundary."},{"archetype_element":"Escalation and arms-race damper","domain_realization":"Per-user and common-control lot caps, short award periods, and rapid release of unused capacity prevent bidders from accumulating withdrawal rights merely to deny them to rivals."},{"archetype_element":"Winner power and lock-in review","domain_realization":"Awards expire after a short period, confer no priority in later auctions, cannot grant control of shared gauges or conveyance, and are reviewed for concentration and foreclosure."},{"archetype_element":"Learning and recalibration loop","domain_realization":"Observed withdrawals, return flows, ecological conditions, unused lots, bid concentration, appeals, and violations inform later floors, lot sizes, charges, caps, eligibility rules, or suspension."}],"mechanism_mapping":[{"mechanism_slug":"auction_with_eligibility_and_externality_rules","role":"Allocates the contestable withdrawal lots through sealed bids while eligibility gates and location-, timing-, and return-flow adjustments prevent gross willingness to pay from ignoring ecological and downstream costs.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the governed auction, allocation would revert to administrative estimation, entitlement position, or bilateral bargaining and would not obtain a common comparative signal from competing users."},{"mechanism_slug":"contest_rulebook","role":"Freezes the protected floor, entrant qualifications, lot definitions, payment rule, externality adjustments, allowed transfers, fouls, tie-breaks, disclosures, and appeals before bidding.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a binding rulebook, users could not predict the legitimate route to winning and the authority could change material terms after learning bidder identities or prices."},{"mechanism_slug":"spending_cap_or_resource_cap","role":"Caps the share of contestable withdrawal capacity that one bidder or commonly controlled group may hold during a period.","counterfactual_removal":"Without the cap, a well-resourced participant could overbid for excess lots to block rivals, turning water reservation into an escalating foreclosure strategy."},{"mechanism_slug":"externality_bond_or_liability_rule","role":"Requires winners to secure compliance, monitoring, and attributable remediation obligations proportionate to the risk of their awarded withdrawals.","counterfactual_removal":"Without secured responsibility, a user could consume the benefit of withdrawal and leave downstream users or the public to bear remediation costs after the allocation expires."},{"mechanism_slug":"anti_collusion_monitoring","role":"Pools bids, affiliate relationships, geographic divisions, prices, and transfers across rounds to flag rotation, cover bidding, or coordinated withholding for independent investigation.","counterfactual_removal":"Without cross-round monitoring, users could make repeated auctions appear competitive while quietly dividing time periods, locations, or customers."},{"mechanism_slug":"sabotage_or_foul_penalty_schedule","role":"Publishes graduated consequences for meter tampering, false return-flow claims, affiliate concealment, prohibited coordination, speculative hoarding, and unauthorized withdrawal or resale.","counterfactual_removal":"Without a known penalty schedule paired with detection, misconduct could remain a calculated route to water access or rival exclusion."},{"mechanism_slug":"challenger_access_window","role":"Uses expiring lots, rapid re-auction of unused capacity, and recurring bidding periods so an early winner cannot retain drought-season access automatically.","counterfactual_removal":"Without recurring access, temporary allocation could harden into incumbent control and conservation by outsiders would not create a practical route into later rounds."},{"mechanism_slug":"post_contest_impact_review","role":"Compares awarded and realized net consumption, environmental guardrails, unused capacity, concentration, appeals, and downstream effects before the next auction.","counterfactual_removal":"Without review, incorrect return-flow assumptions, weak externality charges, ineffective caps, or ecological leakage could persist across repeated drought periods."}],"causal_chain":["Low river flow reduces the volume available for discretionary withdrawal while multiple users still value access to it.","Under entitlement queues, emergency approvals, or bilateral bargaining, each user can gain by reserving early, overstating need, obscuring net consumption, or controlling access rather than by revealing a comparable value for water.","Because withdrawals differ by timing, location, and return flow, competition over gross diversion can export costs to downstream users and ecological receptors.","The authority first removes essential supply, protected rights, emergency reserves, and an ecological floor from the competitive arena.","The residual capacity is divided into expiring net-consumption lots, making the scarce prize explicit and limiting the duration of winner control.","Eligibility, common measurement, sealed bids, and a frozen payment rule make declared willingness to pay within environmental constraints the legitimate route to an award.","Externality adjustments and secured liability return attributable spillover costs to each winning strategy instead of leaving them outside the auction.","Holding caps, rapid release, anti-collusion screens, foul penalties, and recurring challenger access constrain hoarding, foreclosure, coordination, and permanent lock-in.","Post-period comparison of bids, awards, withdrawals, return flows, and environmental observations determines whether the arena should be recalibrated, halted, or replaced."],"baseline":"The authority applies seniority-based curtailment, first-come emergency permits, negotiated exceptions, or bilateral transfers during low-flow periods. Gross withdrawal rights are treated more prominently than time- and location-specific net consumption; unused reservations may be difficult to recover quickly; ecological safeguards, market-power controls, cross-round conduct monitoring, and independent appeals operate separately or incompletely.","nearest_rivals":["Proportional administrative curtailment: reduces every contestable user's allocation by a common fraction and avoids bidding, but does not elicit comparative conservation choices or prevent users from defending inflated baseline claims.","Strict priority or seniority administration: follows an established entitlement order and may be easier to adjudicate, but allows historical position to determine access even when temporary trades or conservation could reallocate discretionary capacity within protected boundaries.","Fixed scarcity pricing: charges every eligible user a posted drought price, simplifying process but requiring the authority to estimate the clearing price and providing no direct rationing rule when demand still exceeds the ecological remainder.","Central hydrologic optimization: assigns water using administrator-estimated social values and system effects, potentially representing connected flows directly but replacing rivalry with centralized valuation and exposing decisions to information and discretion limits.","Unrestricted bilateral water trading: permits voluntary reallocation but can favor parties controlling information or conveyance, obscure affiliate coordination, and omit common externality charges and recurring access protections."],"remaining_contrastive_claim":"The proposal's limited contrastive claim is that, when legally contestable drought-season water remains after noncontestable floors are protected, a recurring auction of expiring net-consumption lots with eligibility, spillover charges, holding caps, due process, anti-abuse monitoring, secured liability, and ecological recalibration keeps competitive winning more closely tied to declared use value within environmental constraints than queues, strategic reservation, or unbounded bilateral rivalry. Practical performance remains untested.","authority_safety":{"decision_authority":"Only the legally authorized basin water authority may define contestable capacity or approve a dry-run design. Courts, tribal authorities, environmental regulators, public-health officials, and existing rights-adjudication bodies retain their respective powers. A shadow exercise cannot modify a water right, compact, permit, ecological requirement, or emergency obligation.","authorized_first_step":"Conduct a nonbinding shadow auction for one archived low-flow interval. Using already authorized gauge, meter, permit, and return-flow data, reconstruct the protected floor and hypothetical residual lots; preregister the payment rule, charges, caps, missing-data treatment, and evaluation criteria; solicit voluntary confidential dry-run bids if authorized; and compare the shadow allocation with recorded use without changing any entitlement or withdrawal.","excluded_actions":["Auctioning essential household supply, emergency reserves, protected tribal rights, adjudicated rights, or the ecological floor","Changing a current water right, permit, curtailment order, compact obligation, or withdrawal authorization","Authorizing a new diversion, pumping installation, conveyance change, or habitat disturbance","Treating willingness to pay as authority to cross a public-health, ecological, treaty, or legal constraint","Using an anti-collusion screen as proof or imposing sanctions without investigation and appeal","Publishing bidder identities, confidential bids, sensitive infrastructure data, or protected resource information","Collecting payment, requiring a bond, transferring a right, or enforcing the shadow allocation","Automating final drought allocation from auction output"],"halt_rollback":"Stop the shadow exercise if the protected floor or contestable remainder cannot be lawfully and reproducibly separated, meters or return-flow estimates are inadequate, protected rights could be impaired, ecological constraints cannot be represented as hard boundaries, confidential bids cannot be safeguarded, or reasonable hydrologic assumptions produce unstable allocations. Void the shadow clearing result, retain an access-controlled methods and failure record, and leave existing rights and drought operations unchanged."},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"The strongest counterevidence would show that the baseline already reallocates unused capacity promptly, accounts reliably for net consumption and downstream effects, produces no material hoarding or accelerated extraction, remains open to qualified users, and yields outcomes insensitive to entitlement position or private bargaining advantage; it would also show that auction bids add no reliable allocation information.","problem_falsifier":"The inferred problem is falsified for the tested basin if no legally contestable capacity remains after protected floors, users are not strategically interdependent, reservations closely match realized use, return-flow and location differences are immaterial, access is not concentrated or foreclosed, and bilateral or administrative adjustments recover unused water without ecological leakage.","intervention_falsifier":"The intervention is falsified as a useful governance design if bids are too unstable or liquidity-constrained to represent use value; common-control and off-auction transfers cannot be monitored; net-consumption lots cannot be measured; payment rules encourage material demand reduction or manipulation; affordability safeguards displace essential uses into the arena; environmental constraints are breached; or transaction burden and delay prevent timely drought response.","risks":["Hydrologic and return-flow estimates may create false precision in lot definitions and externality charges.","Willingness to pay can track financial capacity rather than public or ecological value.","A holding cap may be evaded through affiliates or may prevent an efficient large user from operating.","Incumbents may possess storage, conveyance, historical data, or infrastructure advantages outside the auction boundary.","Sealed bidding can reduce overt signaling but cannot eliminate coordinated withholding or territorial division.","Frequent auctions may create planning uncertainty for agriculture, utilities, workers, and dependent communities.","Short-duration lots may reward flexible users while disadvantaging uses with long production cycles.","Compliance security may exclude smaller users unless calibrated and applied only after eligibility safeguards.","Public disclosure sufficient for legitimacy may also facilitate coordination in later rounds.","Rapid release rules may penalize prudent contingency reserves or users facing uncertain weather.","Ecological indicators may respond after the allocation period, delaying detection of harm.","The protected floor may become politicized or strategically adjusted to predetermine the auction's size.","Dry-run bids may differ from binding behavior, limiting what the first evidence step can establish."]},"next_evidence_step":"Pre-register and run the authorized shadow exercise for one archived low-flow interval. Report whether the protected and contestable volumes can be separated, how allocations change across reasonable return-flow and ecological assumptions, bid and concentration sensitivity, unused-capacity recovery, affiliate-screen feasibility, downstream constraint violations, administrative timing, distribution of hypothetical payments, appeal cases, and data gaps. Treat voluntary bids as behavioral probes rather than demonstrated market values, make no operational allocation, and stop if protected floors cannot be held invariant.","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","diversity_from_prior_proposals":"Proposal 1 governed a competition among jurisdictions for public adaptation grants, addressing project-local scoring and transferred flood risk through basin-level portfolio evaluation, multiple capital awards, and implementation safeguards. Proposal 3 instead governs rivalry among water users over a physically scarce drought-season flow after protected floors are removed from competition; its primary intervention is a recurring externality-adjusted auction of expiring net-consumption lots, and its causal path runs through reservation, accelerated extraction, willingness-to-pay revelation, holding caps, and ecological recalibration. It can be adopted without changing adaptation-grant selection. Proposal 2 governed scientific model teams competing for operational forecast status, addressing benchmark overfitting, compute escalation, and correlated model error through sealed tests, resource-bounded evaluation, and ensemble selection. Proposal 3 does not evaluate models or award forecast authority; it allocates temporary use of a monitored natural resource through bids and hard environmental boundaries. Its evidence, actors, prize, abuse routes, and downstream consequences are therefore separate from both earlier proposals.","revision_record":{"parent_version":null,"progress_targets_addressed":["Third independently adoptable candidate for the same archetype-domain cell","Material distinction from adaptation-grant portfolio governance and forecast-model tournament governance","Complete specification of protected floors, scarce prize, auction process, externality controls, authority, falsifiers, and bounded evidence"],"conceptual_changes":["Initial version; no parent proposal","Applied bounded rivalry to recurrent drought-season competition for discretionary river withdrawal","Made physical scarcity, strategic reservation, net consumptive effects, and ecological thresholds central to the causal structure"],"operational_changes":["Specified expiring location- and time-specific lots, sealed multi-unit bidding, externality adjustments, holding caps, unused-lot release, compliance security, appeals, and recurring review","Restricted the first step to a nonbinding reconstruction and dry-run auction for an archived interval"],"evidence_changes":["Prior art remains unsearched","Bounded initial evidence to authorized historical hydrologic records and, if permitted, voluntary confidential dry-run bids"],"claim_changes":["Made no claim of novelty, prevalence, demand, effect size, allocation efficiency, or ecological benefit","Restricted the claim to a testable governance contrast for legally contestable water remaining after protected floors"]}}