[Objective] Comparative study on ecological water consumption of typical land use types in Taihu Lake basin was conducted

in order to provide a theoretical basis for optimizing land use structure and improving water regulation capacity of the watershed ecosystem.[Methods] Based on water flux monitoring points

a field scale model

soil-water-atmosphere-plant model(SWAP)

was applied to simulate the ecological water consumptions in forest land

tea garden and cultivated land.[Results] ① Ecological water consumption in the forest land showed a single peak from June to August

in which tree's transpiration contributed 87.80% of it

hence it played an important role in regulating the amount of water. ② Ecological water consumption in tea garden changed relatively in a flat mode during the year

tea plant transpiration(69.17%) and soil evaporation(25.69%) accounted for the majority of the water consumption together. ③ Yearly change of ecological water consumption in cultivated land had two obvious different periods

corresponding to wheat season(January to May) and rice growing season(June to November)

respectively. Annual transpiration of cultivated land(61.28%) and the evaporation(33.45%) accounted for 94.73% of the water consumption. ④ The evaporation of forest land was relatively smaller than those of garden and cultivated land. This can ascribed as the following reasons:litter layer and canopy were thick in forest

whereas branch leaves did not recover in tea garden

and crops were at the stages of initial growth.[Conclusion] Annual variance of ecological water consumption was mainly affected by rainfall and temperature

but growth period of crops and tea pruning may also have their impacts on ecological water consumption.