Abstract: To avoid external shocks and challenges and to maintain regional peace and stable development, the research on the resilience of the water resources- water environment- social economy complex system is one of the important ways. Based on the ideas of projection pursuit and differential equation, this study constructs a new resilience evaluation model to evaluate the resilience of the water resources-water environment-social economy complex system in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1999 to 2018. Taking the level of resilience of Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2011 as turning point, the results confirmed that the level of resilience maintain stable before 2011 and steady improve after 2011. The findings also revealed that the factor affecting the level of resilience in Jiangxi and Yunnan was natural resource endowment conditions, the factors affecting the level of resilience in Shanghai were technological development and government macroeconomic policy, While the level of resilience in other provinces were undergo a transition between the above factors. The order of optimal control factors was ranked as adaptability > restoration > resistance, and the optimal control factors gradually shifted from resistance to adaptability.