The Middle Route Project of South-to-North Water Transfer is the major water conservancy project that effectively alleviates water shortages in Beijing, Tianjin and North China. The construction of the project involves many problems such as reservoir resettlement and ecological environment construction. In particular, the human capital, social capital and economic recovery in ecological migration are the current controversial issues. Based on the sample survey data of the immigrants in the middle line reservoir area of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, the “people-oriented” core idea is to analyze the feasibility of ecological migration. Interventional poverty is used as an analytical framework to study the poverty problems brought about by ecological migration and the impact of human capital and social capital on the ecological migration economy. The multivariate linear regression model with human capital and social capital as independent variables and household economic income as the dependent variable is used to analyze the impact of human capital and social capital on the economic recovery of immigrant families in different relocation stages. The empirical research results show that after the relocation of the South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Line Project, the improvement of human capital and social capital on the economic income in the process of economic recovery has failed; compared with local farmers, the average age, the level of education, the number of migrant workers and the farthest footprint of the family labor force in the immigrant human capital are no longer significant factors affecting household income. Factors such as communication costs, professional cooperative associations, and the level of participation in collective affairs of social capital no longer have an explanatory effect on household economic income. With the adaptation to the local environment, some of the factors in human capital and social capital have restored the economic recovery of immigrant families. In social capital, the effects of macro-social capital are restored, and the effects of micro-social capital are still not restored, mainly because the migration of immigrants has caused great damage to the micro-social capital of farmers. © Foundation Environmental Protection & Research-FEPR.

Human capital Economic recovery Ecological immigration Multiple linear regression South-to-North Water Transfer Social capital

empirical analysis China social capital regression analysis economic reform immigration poverty alleviation recovery plan water planning Tianjin project assessment water management Beijing [China] reservoir North China Plain household income water supply human capital immigrant population