In view of the nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin, an evaluation index system covering three criteria layers such as water resources, ecological environment and economic and society is constructed. The water resources carrying capacity of nine provinces in 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017 was evaluated by the TOPSIS model combined with analytic hierarchy process(AHP)and entropy weight, and the evaluation results of the year of 2017 were diagnosed with obstacle factors. The results show that in the time dimension, the water resources carrying capacity of nine provinces shows an increasing trend, especially in Henan, Shandong and Inner Mongolia, and the improvement of water resources carrying capacity is closely related to the improvement of two criteria level related indicators such as eco-environment, economic society. In the spatial dimension, the water resources carrying capacity of the nine provinces does not reach the level of grade I(carriable level), and the spatial difference is obvious. Water production module, water resources per capita, water supply modulus, ecological water use rate, vegetation coverage rate, water consumption per 10 000 RMB of industrial added value and water consumption per 10 000 RMB of GDP are seven major obstacles, and there are significant differences of some obstacle factors in different provinces.