Abstract: The national territory development plan needs to evaluate the resource environmental carrying capacity, which can provide basis for the delineation of so-called "three zones and three lines", that is the spaces for urban, agriculture and ecology, as well as the red lines of environmental protection, permanent basic farmland protection and urban development. The theory and method of resource environmental carrying capacity evaluation have received more and more attention from all stakeholders, but a complete theoretical framework has not yet been formed. This study introduces short-board theory, risk theory and marginal theory, develops the theoretical framework of resource environmental carrying capacity evaluation, and conducts empirical research with the Suide County of the Loess Plateau in Northern Shaanxi as the research area. Based on the short-board theory, we identify the major resource environmental problems in this region, and select 1-3 restrictive factors; On the basis of the marginal theory, we take the maximum profit or no-profit of resource development and utilization as the evaluation standards to carry out the evaluation of resource carrying capacity; According to the risk theory, the allowable standards of environmental issues brought about by human activities or of life and property risks caused by disasters are taken as the evaluation standards to carrying out the evaluation of environmental carrying capacity; By using the single factor carrying capacity evaluation results to carry out the comprehensive carrying capacity evaluation, the results can be classified as safe, overload or unacceptable three categories. The comprehensive carrying capacity evaluation results are overlapped with the regional terrestrial space development status or planning results, which can be used to delineate the "three districts and three lines" of regional development. The resource environmental carrying capacity evaluation results of Suide County show that the theoretical framework and technical method system are simple and easy to promote, and the evaluation results are credible, which can provide support for the optimization of terrestrial space development and the scientific delineation of the "three red lines".