Abstract: Area of sandy land in our country is decreasing in general，but ecological environment is still degenerating in local desert area.Taking Gansu Hexi desert area especially Minqin desert area as an example，the essence that ecological environment degradation in desert area was water resources degradation was discussed from 4 aspects that the formation of desert was result of water resource degradation，water resource was the dominant factor of many factors in ecological environment of arid desert，water was a necessary condition for the existence of vegetation and water was the key factor limiting afforestation and desertification control.The process of ecological environmentthe degradation in desert was the process that natural factors were relatively weak and human factors continued to enhance. Human factors mainly included that large agricultural water consumption，creating sandfixation blindly on the edge of desert and invalid evaporation consumption of artificial reservoir，channel and constructed wetland etc.Suggestions that tillage area determined by water resource and animal husbandry development determined by forage grass，and creating artificial sandfixation grass blindly on the edge of desert could be prohibited strictly were put forward.