Irrational allocation of irrigation water resources aggravates water shortages, affecting the sustainable development of agriculture, especially in arid regions. The expansion of the cultivated area in the middle Heihe river basin (HRB) will not necessarily increase the water consumption, despite the increase in the water-saving irrigation area. In this study, the temporal and spatial distribution, and the driving factors related to water consumption, including evapotranspiration (ET), transpiration (T), evapotranspiration ratio (T/ET), and precipitation deficit (ET-P), were investigated in the middle HRB using linear trend, piecewise fitting, and multiple linear regression method. The results show that the "97 WDS" has prominent impacts on the temporal and spatial trends and the driving factors in ET and T in the middle HRB. Water consumption does not necessarily increase under the centralized water allocation with improved irrigation efficiency and increased cultivated area. The result provides new evidence for increasing T/ET to decrease water consumption in response to the expanding cultivated area, while helping decision-makers to reduce water consumption in the middle HRB, and evaluate “97 WDS”.

灌溉水资源配置不合理加剧水资源短缺，影响农业可持续发展，特别是在干旱地区。尽管节水灌溉面积增加，但黑河流域中游（HRB）耕地面积的扩大并不一定会增加用水量。在这项研究中，研究了与耗水量相关的时空分布和驱动因素，包括蒸散量（ET）、蒸腾量（T）、蒸散比（T/ET）和降水亏缺（ET-P）。中间HRB采用线性趋势、分段拟合和多元线性回归方法。结果表明，“97 WDS”对HRB中段ET、T的时空趋势和驱动因素影响显着。在提高灌溉效率和增加耕地面积的集中调水下，用水量不一定增加。该结果为增加 T/ET 以减少用水量以应对耕地扩大提供新的证据，同时帮助决策者减少中间 HRB 的用水量，并评估“97 WDS”。