According to economics,economic development is sure to lead to environm ental pollution.It needs the efforts of government and people including both economists and environm entalists to control the pollution i n a range of allowed limits that environment c an afford.Water pollution in a river basin is mainly caused by unreasonab le economic development pattern.Two o bvious indicators to value the effic iency of water use are production ratio of one unit water in agriculture(i.e.grain output in kg /unit water consumption in m3)and water consumption per 10,000RMB output for industry(namely m3/10,000RMB output ).After a detailed analysis on the pro blems of water use existing in Guanting Reservoir b asin,the present pattern of economi c development and water consumption are discussed in this paper.The two indi ces in the basin are 0.67kg /m3and 160m3/10,000yuan,respectively.Ac-cording to the situations of the basin,the accepted values should be grea ter than 1.0kg /m3and less than 100m3/10,000yuan.From sustainable development point of view,a new developme nt pattern of eco -economy is suggested to enhance economy in the basin scale.The pattern is mainly focused on sustainable use of water resources as we ll as other resources in the basin.