Abstract: Through analyzing the water consumption data in the past six decades in China, the temporal and spatial features of water consumption were obtained.In temporal scale, agricultural water consumption, as a dominant sector, increased rapidly from 1949 to 1980, and kept quite stable and even decreased after 1980; whereas industrial water consumption has increased rapidly in response to economic development since 1980. In spatial scale, the total water use, domestic water use and industrial water use in the south were much more than those in the north; the agricultural water use and eco-environmental replenishment water in the south were less than those in the north; and the water use efficiency of the east, middle and west part of China displayed some gap and presented different change trends. Furthermore, the water demands in the future 10-15 years inscenarios of high, moderate and low consumption were predicted respectively using the scenario analysis method.

Key words: water resources utilization, water demand, China, change trend, water demand prediction, summarizing and analysis