Evolutionary Game Analysis of the Innovation and Diffusion of Water-Saving Technology

Water resources are indispensable strategic primary resources for sustainable social development. To solve the water shortage problem, promoting the innovation and diffusion of water-saving technology is the key to improvement. In contrast, governmental regulation is a necessary means to promote the innovation of water-saving technology. This study builds a game model with the involvement of governments and businesses. The objective of the game model is to simulate the performance of imposing a tax or a subsidy to promote water-saving technology. In addition, this study introduces the bionic model Lotka–Volterra to investigate the diffusion process of water-saving technology by simulating the performance of the growth rate and competition coefficient. To explain this process more scientifically and intuitively, this paper uses MATLAB to simulate it. The results show that (i) when the subsidy coefficient is between 0.6 and 0.7, the enthusiasm of the government and enterprises to participate in innovating water-saving technology is high; (ii) when the tax penalty coefficient is higher than 0.8, it can not only motivate governmental control but also promote the innovation of enterprises’ water-saving technology; and (iii) the final equilibrium of the diffusion of water-saving technology is irrelevant to the growth rate in the long term, but it is closely related to the competition coefficient. Based on the above conclusions, this paper puts forward some relevant political suggestions to promote the innovation and diffusion of water-saving technology, such as reasonably increasing the water resources tax and government subsidies.