Large-scale industrial production consumes considerable amounts of water and discharges a large quantity of industrial sewage, and both of these are primary causes of the global water crisis and problems relating to the water environment. Scientifically and effectively evaluating the impact of industrial production on water resources is the premise and foundation of improving the efficiency of water resources utilization and management in industrial production, which is very important in relieving the stress on water resources and the water environment, especially in China. In order to develop a system and methods for evaluating the impact of industrial production on water resources based on the concept and theory of water footprint, the concept of Industrial Water Footprint (IWF) was proposed and its system boundary and evaluation content analysed. IWF is a multi-dimensional index for the increment of water resources usage caused by the industrial production process. As a part of water footprint sustainability evaluation, IWF focuses on the industrial production process. The function of IWF is to evaluate the synthetic impacts of an industrial production process or an individual product, an industrial enterprise, an industry or even a region on water resources and the water environment. Based on the concept of IWF, this paper also analysed its connotation and categories, and determined the system boundary. Compared with the traditional footprint evaluation of entire Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), IWF has its own system boundary and range of issues to be evaluated, in which items such as water usage and pollutant discharge of natural and agricultural process, plant growth, livestock feeds, agricultural irrigation and daily life of human beings are not taken into account. IWF can be divided into two parts: direct and indirect. As the name implies, the direct IWF comprises the water resources consumed and the pollution of the water environment directly caused by the industrial production process. On the other hand, the indirect IWF comprises the potential water resources consumption and pollution of the water environment caused by raw materials, auxiliary materials and secondary energy resources. Moreover, the framework and basic methods of evaluation in IWF are also constructed. The evaluation framework of IWF is composed of three parts: production water footprint, public water footprint and transport water footprint. ‘Production water footprint’ refers to the sum of processed water footprints of all industrial production processes. ‘Public water footprint’ refers to the sum of water footprints of the assistant production management system, including detection, maintenance and wastewater treatment. ‘Transport water footprint’ refers to the water footprint caused by transportation, which includes transportation production and public transportation in industrial production processes. ‘Transportation production' particularly refers to freight transportation of all processes, including the semi-finished product and raw material transportation in the industrial production processes, as well as transporting the semi-finished product and final product in and out of store. ‘Public transportation’ particularly refers to the transportation of the staff of the assistant production management sector. Furthermore, the prospect of application and significance of evaluation of IWF in terms of product, enterprise and region were forecasted and discussed.