Abstract: In the drainage basins with shortage of water resources, water resources is the main factor affecting ecoenvironmental quality and social and economic development. Therefore, it is necessary to study the eco-environmental carrying capacity related to water resources in these basins so as to provide the references for realizing sustainable development. Shortage of water resources in the drainage basins is caused by low mean annual precipitation. Eco-environmental carrying capacity is defined as the largest population and economic scale (usually expressed as gross domestic product, GDP) that can be sustained in a particular region or drainage basin over a specified time and under a certain environmental protection standard and social welfare level, when the ecoenvironment, society and economy of the region are reached a critical acceptable level by using local (or diverted) water and other resources available. After analyzing the documental data since the 1980s, firstly, the significance of study on ecoenvironmental carrying capacity and the current status of the study are described, on which the future challenges are proposed as follows: ① The theory needs to be improved from developing a measuring system so as to apply it in drainage basins. The measuring system includes the concept of ecoenvironmental carrying capacity is given based on the concept, a measuring index system and a measuring model is developed, and an application case of the abovementioned measuring model is given. ② In the measuring system, social and economic sustainable development in the drainage basins with shortage of water resources needs to be considered so as to serve national needs. In this respect, the serving value and dynamic change of ecoenvironmental carrying capacity is emphasized. Because the carrying capacity is the threshold of social and economic sustainable development in the drainage basins, the development of the drainage basins will be reasonable and feasible under the limitation of the eco-environment carrying capacity. The carrying capacity is variable with the change of social and economic development, therefore, time series should be considered in the future. ③ Eco-environmental problems need to be considered as complete as possible. In a drainage basin with shortage of water resources, there are many ecoenvironmental problems related to water resources, such as excessive groundwater pump, water pollution, river channel shortening or river water drying, decrease of the volume of water reaching sea, water loss and soil erosion and polluted water discharge. In the hilly area and plain of a drainage basin, the eco-environmental problems are different. Therefore, in the future study on eco-environmental carrying capacity in the drainage basins or areas with shortage of water resources, the eco-environmental problems should be considered. In the future, water resources could not be considered as an invariable value when eco-environmental carrying capacity in the drainage basins with shortage of water resources is studied, because of its change with the change of precipitation, especially in recent years under climate change and increase of human activities.

Key words: water resources, eco-environmental carrying capacity, environmental quality, sustainable development