Abstract:

This paper selected the Zhangye Oasis in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin as the research area and explored and established water resource accounts at the field-irrigation area-basin scales in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin from 2019 to 2020. The results showed that： （1） The water resource utilization efficiencies at the field， irrigation area，and basin scales were different， showing a decreasing trend on the whole. The ratio of process losses to total losses at the field scale was approximately 0.61-0.68. The performance of losses for different crops varied. The ratio of process losses to total losses at the irrigation area scale was approximately 0.454， and the ratio of process losses to total losses at the basin scale was approximately 0.203. （2） The overall water resource loss proportions at the field， irrigation area，and basin scales were different，showing a decreasing trend on the whole. The ratio of total losses to total inflow at the field scale was approximately 1.01， indicating that the available water in the fields had been almost completely consumed. The ratio of total losses to total inflow at the irrigation area scale was approximately 0.887， indicating that there was still about 10% of water available for utilization at the irrigation area scale. The ratio of total losses to total inflow at the basin scale was approximately 0.728， and the ratio of total losses to available water was approximately 0.845， indicating that although there was still 10%-15% of water resources available for development and utilization at the basin scale， the available space had also been hovering near the extreme value. The research results show that there is a possibility for further development and utilization of water resources at the levels of irrigation areas and river basins.It’s of great significance for the rational regulation and control of water resources in arid areas， as well as for guiding the irrigation agriculture of oases and ecological protection.

Key words: water resource account, Zhangye Oasis, middle reaches of the Heihe River