[Objective] The objective of this study is to present practical research on the long-term equilibrium relationship between utilization of water resources and economic growth and provide decision reference for the sustainable and coordinated development of water resources and social economy in karst ecologically fragile areas with rapid economic development.[Methods] Selected Bijie City of Guizhou Province as a case study, and employed the VAR(vector autoregressive) model for analysis. The equilibrium relationship between utilization of water resources and economic growth of the industrial system in Bijie City from 2001 to 2016 was analyzed by ADF smoothness test, co-integration test and granger causality test, generalized impulse response and variance decomposition analysis.[Results] ① There existed long-term equilibrium relationship between economic growth and total water consumption, agricultural output and agricultural water consumption, industrial output value and industrial water consumption; ② The impulse response of agricultural output value to agricultural water consumption and industrial water consumption to industrial output value was positive, and the others were negative; ③ The contribution of industrial water consumption to the average variance decomposition of industrial output value was 54.584%, the contribution of agricultural water consumption to agricultural output value was 1.629 7%, and the variance contribution of other variables was relatively large, indicating that development still requires a lot of water resources development and utilization.[Conclusion] The effect of agricultural water consumptione on promoting agricultural output value was little, and industrial water consumption on the increase of industrial output value was strong. However, the shortage of industrial water consumption impedes industrial development. Along with economic growth, the investment in production and water saving technologies should be further strengthened.