Enhancing coastal ecosystem resilience amid transboundary marine pollution through collaborative governance: An evolutionary game analysis

The loss of coastal ecosystem resilience caused by protracted marine pollution has prompted local governments (LGs) to govern marine pollution, yet the transboundary nature of marine pollution represents a challenge for collaborative governance action among LGs. This paper employs evolutionary game theory to examine the evolutionary stable strategies of LGs with or without the supervision of the central government (CG). The result shows that LGs choosing collaborative governance and CG choosing passive supervision are the optimal evolutionary stability strategies. Further, the sensitivity analysis reveals that the governance cost is the most significant factor impacting LGs' choice of governance. LGs are more influenced by punishment, while CG is more sensitive to incentives. This study points out targeted pathways to raise the integration of marine pollution collaborative governance, and it offers insights into marine governance policy that foster multi-stakeholder cooperation and enhance the resilience of the coastal ecosystems.