Coupling root-zone osmotic monitoring with dynamic behavioral tariffs: A spatiotemporal eco-hydroeconomic allocation framework for salinity mitigation and groundwater resilience

Static conjunctive use allocation fixes surface water and groundwater ratios from historical averages, and in arid irrigation systems this rigidity intensifies root zone salinity and accelerates aquifer depletion by ignoring the interaction between salt accumulation, conveyance limits, and pumping. Current methods treat source blending and water pricing as separate problems, leaving no mechanism that links immediate salinity risk to the economic incentives that govern extraction. This study formulates the Spatiotemporal Eco-Hydroeconomic Allocation Framework, which couples soil moisture and electrical conductivity sensing with a constrained linear programming optimizer for surface water and groundwater blending and a dynamic scarcity pricing module, evaluated by simulation over one irrigation season for a 2400 ha hyperarid alluvial command area under a historical drought sequence. Across hydrological stress scenarios the simulated framework lowered peak root zone salinity by 37–45% relative to static scheduling across contrasting soil textures, reduced dependence on the shallow aquifer, and maintained farm gate revenue across farm size categories. These findings indicate that coupling salinity monitoring with scarcity responsive pricing can shift extraction away from vulnerable aquifers while protecting yields, and support field validation of this adaptive approach for managing salinity and groundwater stress in irrigated arid basins.