The Empirical Research For The Factors Of The Water Resources Carrying Capacity In The Northwest Arid Area

Minqin County of Gansu province is one of the most arid region in the world. The underground water level continues to decline along with the excessive exploitation of groundwater in the area. In recent years, with the national government’s attention, Minqin government took effective measures in response to the problem of water shortage to improve the efficiency of configuration of water resources. But water resources shortage is still the bottleneck restricting to the development of local economy.In this paper, on the basis of interpretation the theory of water carrying capacity and water right trade, analysis the factors which influence water carrying capacity and the influence of water rights trade on water carrying capacity and evaluate water-carrying economics capacity of Minqin County. Then, through the analysis get the reason of water-carrying capacity to grow slowly. First, the first industrial water demand of Minqin County is more than80%of the total water demand. Second, the unit water economic benefit of the first industrial is very low. Finally, we put forward some suggestions to further improve the county’s water rights trading system:the first is to establish the scientific and reasonable water price mechanism, the second is to improve the water rights trading laws, the third is to improve the water distribution management, promoting water rights transaction and the forth is to perfect the contract system of water transaction.