Table 1 Parameterization

Num-user

Number of users of the irrigation resource in a village

[20, 40, 60, 80]

Survey results: mean = 46.7, SD = 26.4

Seed-ratio

Portion of seed participants of the cooperation

[5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, 15%]

Survey results: mean = 7.87%, SD = 4.40%

Seed participant

Types of seed participants in terms of their characteristics

[High degree, high dependence, high entrepreneurship]

Peres (2014) (for high degree), Ostrom (1992) (high dependence) and Rogers (2010) (for high entrepreneurship)

Scale

Scale of production, represented by acreage of land of a household

Following normal distribution across a village, with mean 6.5 and standard deviation 5

Survey results: mean = 6.74, SD = 5.32

Entrep

User’s entrepreneurship, represented by the schooling years of the household heads

Following normal distribution across a village, with mean 9.34 and standard deviation 3.6

Survey results: mean = 9.5, SD = 3.50

Network

Network structure of a village

[Random network, Scale-free network]

The finding that network structure of villages in central China is close to that of scale-free networks (Xiong and Payne 2017). Random network is commonly used as a benchmark for comparing dynamics on different networks (e.g., Montanari and Saberi 2010; Rand et al. 2011)

Prob-ER

Connection probability for generating random networks

[5, 10%]

The need of producing networks with characteristics similar to those described in Xiong and Payne (2017)

SF-initial

Initial number of nodes for generating scale-free network

[3, 4]

SF-rewire

Rewiring probability for generating scale-free networks

[1, 2]

Dist

Distance to the irrigation resource

Approximately [0.05, 17.05]

Generated by the model

Subsidy-ratio

Percentage of government subsidies on cooperation fee

[40, 50, 60, 70, 80%]

Survey results: mean = 60%, SD = 15%

α

Coefficient of cooperation propensity

[0. 4, 0. 6]

The need that the most diffusions can converge for the parameter combinations favoring diffusion and meanwhile diverse results can be produced by different parameter combinations

β

Coefficient of cooperation expenditure

[5, 7]

γ

Coefficient of coordination cost, i.e.the exponent in coordination cost function

[1, 1.1]