Heuristic Method for the Emergency Water Delivery Problem with Deprivation Costs

Humanitarian operations are characterized by the need to provide aid to affected populations in an efficient manner for minimizing the effects caused by humanitarian crises. Humanitarian operations include the distribution of aid and scarce resources such as water, medicine, and food, with the total cost of operation being one of the criteria most used by decision-makers and researchers. However, in the last two decades, the inclusion of social costs such as the deprivation cost and equity as part of the decision criteria in these problems has become a trend of great relevance. This research presents a heuristic method to establish a drinking water distribution plan in post-disaster scenarios including the estimation of the deprivation cost experienced by the people affected by humanitarian disasters. Twenty instances are solved based on available information from the department of Cundinamarca, Colombia. Results show superior performance on the drinking water distribution cost by the proposed method versus a commercial optimizer.