摘要:With the unbalanced development of social economies, regional water shortage is becoming more and more serious. Some countries alleviate this water shortage to a certain extent by implementing water rights trading. However, the sustainable development of the transfer of water rights can easily be affected by carrying out excessive water rights transaction in arid areas. Because of the uncertainty of natural water inflow and the regional comprehensive development level, there are certain risks in water rights trading. In this paper, a human water harmony index (HWHI) is introduced into the quantitative analysis of water rights transaction risk, which can effectively predict the possible risk degree of a water rights transaction, contributing to the healthy development of the water rights transaction market and restoration of ecological environment. In this study, we applied the quantitative model for risk analysis of water rights transaction to the northwest arid region of China. The calculation results show that the overall risk of water rights trading is below 0.16, and that the overall water rights trading belongs to a lower risk level, which shows that the water rights trading market has great potential for development.