Abstract: In the arid inland area of Northwest China, the ecological water transfer and rehabilitation project (EWTRP) is an important measure to restore the deteriorated ecosystem. However, the sustainability of the project is affected by many socio-economic factors. This research was based on results of the questionnaire from Ejina County’s farmer households, which included the farmer households’ attitude, livelihood and the efficiency of the water resource usage. The results showed that although the EWTRP had made great achievements in vegetation restoration, but the sustainability of the project was affected by the following factors: the ecologically-motivated relocated/resettled herdsmen mainly relied on the compensation from the project, causing them a hard living, and increasing the risk of maintaining the current achievement; the project didn’t have a positive impact on watersaving agriculture, the efficiency of water usage was relatively low and had not yet reached the final goal; the compensation of the project only considered the loss of agriculture, but neglected the externality and publicity of eco-water.  We suggest that developing education, offering job opportunity and training programs, improving the efficiency of water usage and establishing reasonable water resources compensation mechanisms are needed to be considered as main domain of environmental recovery as well as ecological water transfer and rehabilitation.