Sustainable ecosystem management based on optimal water allocation and equity measures

Abstract Allocation of water resources is an interesting research topic and one of the main challenges of arid regions. From the point of view of agriculture, this issue is closely related to ecological balance, economic development and social stability. Therefore, fair, efficient and sustainable allocation of water resources for users and decision-making is essential. This paper presents a dynamic stochastic programming model that predicts soil moisture content in a growing season based on data collected from an experimental farm. The model included three types of loam soil, silt loam and clay loam with three treatments of irrigation intervals of 3, 7, 10 and 14 days and three amounts of water allocation with three replications. The proposed framework was evaluated with two criteria of spatial and temporal equity, and the optimal water allocation was analyzed based on this criterion. The results showed that the criterion of temporal equity for loam soil with 7-day irrigation intervals is more than twice that of 14-day irrigation intervals. In addition, the depth of irrigation has had the greatest impact on the fluctuations of the criterion of equity in water allocation in the growing season.