Ecological environmental problems resulting from exploitation of water resources in Northwest China

The Northwest China covers vastarea with rich in natural resources.They are important bases for sustainable economical development and vital component of development of West China.However,located in arid,semi-arid climate belts,these regions are in short of waterr esources and ecologic environment is fragile.In the last half century,there occurred a series of ecologic environment problems related to water such as soil erosion,land desert ification and secondary salinization due to irrational or over-exploitation of water resources.Aiming at these ecologic environment problems in the regions,the paper presents some counterm easures and preventives steps,which include: water resources should be rationally distributed and planned according to drainage area,ensuring not onl y economical water demand,but keeping ecologic environment from damaging as well; surface reservoirs constructions should be strictly restricted,rather the functions of gobinatural under ground reservoirs ought to be fully taken advant age of; water resources evaluation and managements should be considered together; a detached authoritative organization should be established to manage the water resources uniformly.