Abstract: Water price is an important tool for water demand management. At this stage,there is a huge potential for water conservation in China’s residential water consumption,while urban residents’ income also has an impact on water consumption. Therefore,under different urban conditions,how to effective use water price to guide residents to use water wisely is one of the most pressing challenges in water conservation. Using the VAR model with impulse response functions and variance decomposition,the study analyzed the impact of water price and income on residents’ water demand and their dynamics in eight typical cities across China,grouped in pairs according to water abundance,per capita disposable income and current water price levels. The results show that higher water prices can effectively suppress water demand,but the suppression effect decreases over time,while long-term lower water prices cannot effectively reflect water scarcity,making it difficult for residents to accurately understand the extent of water scarcity,and thus cannot effectively suppress water demand. The average contribution of water price to residential water demand in water-deficient cities is concentrated between 12.14% and 26.41%,generally higher than the 2.72% to 10.10% in water-rich cities;In the selected cities,the impact of water price on residential water demand is generally higher than that of income,while the pulling effect of income growth on water demand is relatively insignificant. On the contrary,higher-income can have a certain inhibitory effect on water demand. The water price should be adjusted according to local conditions in different cities,giving full play to the feedback effect of water price on the scarcity of water resources,specifying the periodicity of water price adjustment or setting the conditions for starting water price adjustment,timely and effectively transmit water conservation signals to residents,to reasonably control the water consumption of residents,and strictly control the unreasonable increase in the total amount of urban residents’ water consumption.