Distributional equity

Distributional equity refers to the allocation of costs, benefits, risks and responsibilities as well as of the products of nature requiring the disaggregation of values to highlight who benefits and who loses, and to demonstrate the consequences for those affected. It refers to the fair and just allocation of resources, benefits, and burdens across different groups and individuals in a society, ensuring that everyone has access to opportunities and resources in a way that is considered equitable. Redistribution can occur in various forms: i) geographic (i.e., transferring risk from one place to another) as is the case with upstream/downstream interventions; jurisdictional (i.e., transferring burdens/ costs from one sector to another); ii) social (i.e., reducing risk for some portions of society at the expense of others) as can be the case with urban measures; iii) temporal and generational (i.e., addressing current risks but increasing or failing to account for future risks).