Scarce water, many claimants: divide equally or by need?

Equal = everyone gets screwed equally instead of targeting help where it's needed most. No thanks.

Honestly both fail without enforcement mechanisms. A hybrid with baseline equal shares + emergency reserves for genuine need might work.

Every drought emergency we see proves this: you can't let people die of thirst to maintain an abstract principle. Need-based allocation saves lives.

By need makes sense until you realize it incentivizes wasteful infrastructure planning. Equal share forces efficiency.

Who decides what 'need' actually is though? This gets political fast.

Equal shares sounds fair on paper but completely breaks down when half your region is desert. Need-based is the only practical solution.