Best soil comanagement practices for two watersheds in Germany and Iran using game theory-based approaches Maryam Adhami a , Seyed Hamidreza Sadeghi a, ⁎, Rainer Duttmann b , Majid Sheikhmohammady c a Department of Watershed Management Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources, Tarbiat Modares University, International Campus, Noor 46417-76489, Mazandaran, Iran b Department of Geography, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, CAU, 24098 Kiel, Germany c Faculty of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran HIGHLIGHTS • Collaborative management facilitates identification of key stakeholders. • Game theory based methods simplified the analysis of stakeholders' conflict. • Technical preferences and key stock- holders were dissimilar in Iran and Germany. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT abstract article info Article history: Received 28 February 2019 Received in revised form 2 September 2019 Accepted 2 September 2019 Available online 03 September 2019 Editor: Paulo Pereira Collaborative management is increasingly applied to indicate environmental and socio-economic nego- tiations in every corner of the world. The engagement of multiple stakeholders accompanying experi- ence, science, and economy probing skills is expected to unravel such issues. However, the collaborative approaches to manage existing issues at watershed scale have not been adequately ap- plied. Therefore, the present study has exemplified the establishment of a comanagement framework for the soil management for two case studies i.e., Schleswig-Holstein State of Germany and Galazchai Watershed of Iran using a stakeholder oriented approach applying game theory based methods. Due to management perspectives, different stakeholder groups were involved to investigate effective soil conservation practices. Farmers, consultants, and service providing companies in Germany and resi- dents, policy making institutions and executive organizations in Iran were detected as key stakeholders. The Condorcet and Fallback bargaining methods were used to diagnosis agreement point. Based upon the results, the developed case study in Germany demonstrated close relation among farmers and con- sultants (53%) in contrast with service providing companies. The same situation was observed among residents and policy makers in Iran. Besides, the tendency to implement mechanical practices among Keywords: Environmental management Integrated watershed management Measure implementation Public participation Soil compaction Soil conservation Science of the Total Environment 698 (2020) 134265 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sadeghi@modares.ac.ir (S.H. Sadeghi), duttmann@geographie.uni-kiel.de (R. Duttmann), msheikhm@modares.ac.ir (M. Sheikhmohammady). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134265 0048-9697/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv