Climate change and human activities significantly influence regional distribution of water resources and socio-economic and environmental sustainability.The separation of water formation and dissipation in the arid region leads to a challenge for regional water resources management.A clear insight view on regional water storage variation lacks due to the scarcity of ground observation data in the region.This study applied the satellite data to investigate regional water storage variation in the Ili-Balkhash Basin.The water storage variation data derived from UTCSR-RL05L-2 data with 1°*1°was compared with the data from GLDAS within a period from January 2003 to May 2014,then applied to investigate the temporal and spatial characteristics of water storage variation as well as their influencing factors in the Basin.The results indicated that water storage increased from every November to April of the next year,and decreased from May to October.Among the factors influencing water storage change in the basin,bias between precipitation and evaporation(BPE)is a most important factor to influence regional water storage change,followed by evaporation.Spatially,the factors influencing water storage change differ in water formation and dissipation region.Water storage change is most influenced by precipitation in the water formation region,but by BPE in the water dissipation region,and the impact of evaporation on water storage change in the water dissipation region is greater than that in the water formation region.