Operationalising stability and fairness in transboundary water resource allocations

Abstract

This research identifies a method to evaluate the fairness and stability of existing Pareto optimal policies in the context of transboundary water resource allocations. Using the case study of the Susquehanna river basin, the fairness of efficient policies was evaluated using utilitarianism, egalitarianism and prioritarianism. Stability was evaluated using stability concepts from game theory. The results showed that policies that balance utilitarianism, egalitarianism and prioritarainism can be identified. A status quo bias was seen in non-cooperative games highlighting the cost of getting a large number of actors to agree on a cooperative policy. Fallback bargaining identified an outcome that can potentially be stable in cooperative settings. This outcome also adheres to utilitarian ideas. The method proposed in the study explicitly considers efficiency, fairness and stability as criteria for water allocations and places the research in the context of distributive justice in transboundary water sharing.