Abstract: Reasonable water resources allocation is one of the effective control measures in the sustainable water resources utilization.This article divides the current research on reasonable water resource allocation into two types:a broad and a narrow sense.Research advances in narrow sense reasonable water resource allocation are systematically summarized in three aspects of internal mechanism,practice process and evaluation.This article points out main problems in current water resource allocation processes in China,including the shortage of the effective initial water rights allocation systems,the reasonable and effective compensation mechanism,the broad social involvement and the post-effect evaluation systems.Therefore it is hard to achieve full reasonable allocation of current water resources.In order to solve those related problems in water resources allocation practice,four important aspects must be focused on water resource allocation in China in future research,i.e.,setting up "natural-artificial" dual knowledge and perception mode from modern river basin water cycling process,setting up water resources reasonable allocation mode based on water cycling,setting up uniformly based rules for water resource allocation,and setting up evaluation standard and systems for the rationality of water resources allocation.