Abstract:

Water resource carrying capacity is a critical index that is used to measure sustainable social and economic development in the arid and semi-arid regions.Taking nine basins of Shaanxi Province,China as evaluation units,this paper constructed a comprehensive evaluation model of water resource carrying capacity from two aspects of the macro index and comprehensive index,respectively,to reflect the size,carrying status,and coordination status of water resources carrying capacity.Macro index refers to the economic pressure index and the population pressure index.The comprehensive index refers to the carrying pressure index and the coordination index,which are calculated by constructing an index system that covers water resource,socio-economic and ecological indexes.Finally,through the analysis of the economic pressure index,population pressure index,carrying pressure index,and coordination index,this paper evaluates and discusses the water resource carrying capacity and the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of various basins in Shaanxi Province.The results showed as follows:(1) the water resource of various basins in Shaanxi Province are unevenly distributed and water resource carrying capacity varies significantly,being maximum in southern Shaanxi and minimum in northern Shaanxi and Guanzhong.The Hanjiang River and Jialing River basins in southern Shaanxi are rich in water and rich in precipitation,and the water resource carrying capacity (WI < 0.6) is in a suitable state.However,the water resource utilization efficiency in these two basins is relatively low (HI < 0.6),and the water consumption per capita,per ten thousand Yuan of GDP,and per mu  of farmland irrigation were all higher than the provincial average.Water scarcity and water quality issues threaten the basins of HekouLongmen,interior drainage area,and Beiluo River in northen Shaanxi (1.20 < WI < 1.50).In addition,the water resource carrying capacity is in a state of mild overload.With population and economic growth,the four river basins of the Weihe River,Jing River,Longmen-Sanmenxia,and Yiluo River in Guanzhong region have problems on water supply and demand.Although these resources account for 61.75% of the provincial population theoretically,they can only serve 18.52% of the total province.The comprehensive evaluation index value of water resource carrying capacity is greater than 1.5,which is in a severe overload state.(2) from the analysis of carrying pressure index,it can be seen that the interbasin water transfers play a decisive role in the development of waterdeficient areas and economic centers.As can be seen from Figure 2,the water consumption of the three basins in the Guanzhong region is greater than their total water resources.In other words,inter-basin water transfers from water-rich basins can solve the regional water shortage problem,and then solve the socio-economic issues of sustainable development caused by water crisis.(3) based on the natural resource attributes of water resources,the results of research conducted on the basin,as an evaluation unit,were essentially in line with the laws of nature,contributing to the realization of rational balance and distribution of water resources.

Key words: water resources')">

water resources, water resource carrying capacity, basin, Shaanxi Province