Lexicographic minimax approach to fair water allocation problems

When allocating water resources, fairness is an important issue. It is usually tackled with proportional or weighted sum multi-objective optimization methods, which are criticized as they do not comply with major principles of efficiency and equity. In this work, the lexicographic minimax solution concept for fair allocation is applied to water allocation problems. The applicability of the lexicographic minimax approach and computation algorithm is tested by a case study to allocate water rights for the demand sites sharing the Amu Darya River basin area located in the Aral Sea basin.