Heihe river basin is an area where its local water resources are extremely lacking. Its water resources can’t meet the need of its social and economic development and the ecological environment balance. With the strategy of Development of Western China implemented step by step, the outstanding role of the water resource in drought areas in inland river of Northwestern China is becoming more obvious. So it is an urgent task to analyze the carrying capacity of the local social and economic development under the current water resource condition. Based on the information about the feature of social and economic development and state of ecological environment in Heihe river basin, and under the premises of controlling the worsening of ecological environment and improving it, and in consideration of the water resources carrying capacity, the value of the current water resource carrying-pressing index is calculated. The result indicates that the water resources carrying capacity is beyond its carrying capacity. The social and economic development and ecological environment balance will be greatly obstructed by the limited water resource. At present, just distributing water appropriately among daily life, production, and ecological environment, the harmonious and sustainable development in this area can be realized. To solve the current problem, more analysis about the water resources carrying capacity of planning year is made. The planning year is 2010. Based on predicted data, three possible development program scenes in planning year are formulated. Besides water resource carrying-pressing index, other four indexes-development coefficient, equilibrium coefficient, equitable coefficient and sustainable coefficient-are calculated to analyze the water resource carrying ability. The four indexes reflect respectively the code of water resource utilization, ways of social and economic development, and the degree of ecological environment’s recovering from its increasingly worsening state. The best development program is determined out from the three ones by the most optimum value of the water resources carrying capacity. Water resources are properly distributed among daily life, production, and ecological environment under the best development program.
This research provides a basic reference for the sustainable development of the Heihe river basin because the optimum development mode is selected through the strategical analysis and evaluation of the current state of Heihe river、 its water resources carrying capacity and its sustainable development in the planning year. The goal of sustainable development among society, economy and ecological environment will be achieved under the best development program scene. The result suggests that the harmonious and sustainable development among society, economy and ecological environment within water resources carrying capacity can be realized with certain effort.