Abstract: Affected by a lot of diversion of water resources and artificial irrigation, the water and soil environment in arid pumping-irrigation areas is unique,and its response to environmental factors in the region is long-term, potential and slow, also the development tendency can be described by the scientific evaluation and analysis to the process. The rationality of evaluation process and accuracy of evaluation result is the key for irrigation areas'sustainable development in the future. Using electric irrigation area in Gansu Province as an example, the traditional analytic hierarchy process is improved, and the model of response evaluation for changes of water and soil environment in arid pumping-irrigation areas is established. This paper evaluated response for changes of water and soil environment by using the improved analytic hierarchy process. The evaluation results show that the weights of 18 response factors are all between 0.0192-0.1630, and surface water, groundwater, land use and regional climate in response to the weight of water and soil environmental change are:0.4496, 0.2798, 0.0925 and 0.1601, respectively. Also the results show that response factors to the water and soil environment in arid pumping-irrigation areas are "little sensitive"; surface water response to the changes of the water and soil environment is relatively strong, followed by groundwater, regional climate in order, and land use is the most sluggish; the most sensitive factor in the 18 response factors is quantity of carried water and consumption water for irrigation area, followed by the groundwater level and quality of returned water. Using the analytic hierarchy process in response evaluation for water and soil environment changes in arid pumping-irrigation areas is not common. The evaluation result is consistent with the changes of water and soil environment status quo in irrigation areas, which verifies improved analytic hierarchy process's efficiency and maneuverability in evaluation response for water and soil environment changes in arid pumping-irrigation areas and provides scientific and rational references for construction and management.

Key words: Changes of Water and Soil Environment, Analytic Hierarchy Process, Response Evaluation