Abstract: The previous studies on precipitation-socioeconomy relations were generally limited for different departments of socioeconomy individually. The articlf stresses the necessity to study it for the socioeconomy as a whole and makes an attempt to do so. The principles of water balance in the Nature-Man system were formulated in the preliminary Form. Several indexes were proposed for identifying different states of water balance between supply and need in the system. The results were applied to some regions of North China, showing that the proposed principles and methods are well available to these regions.