Land is the foundation of peasants'survival, land income directly determines the population available for support, and the income closely relates to the economic factors such as land area, quality, mode of utilization and management activities. The income of land expropriation can objectively and comprehensively reflect the population that needs to be resettled, which is of certain reference value. The current method forcalculatingthe production resettlement population as well as their applicability are discussed in combination with the work practice. Comprehensively considering some factors such as the differences in land quality, the multiple uses of land and the dependence degrees of farmers on land, a new ideafor calculating the production resettlement population is proposed from the perspective of land income. The newidea can reflect the actual production and resettlement population and reduce the error of population calculation in land expropriation. The case studies of D hydropower station in Qinghai Province and E hydropower station in Tibet Autonomous Region are taken to analyzethe differences in the calculation of production resettlement population.