In order to achieve the sustainable development of ecological resources and social economy in the Shiyang River Basin, a series of Ecological Compensation policies have been implemented in the basin. This study takes these policies as an opportunity to design an experiment. The nine counties (districts) affected by these policies are used as the experimental samples, and the period from 2000 to 2019 is the experimental period. The difference-in-differences method is used to study the effect of the series of Ecological Compensation policies in the Shiyang River Basin on the economic development of the basin. Furthermore, the regression discontinuity design was used to estimate the time and mechanism of this effect. The research found that the early start of phase I of the Key Governance Planning Project in 2006 played a significant and continuous promotive role in the economic development of the river basin; the Water Resources Allocation and Regulation Plan significantly promoted the development of tertiary industry in 2005–2007; the Key Governance Planning significantly promoted the development of primary industry in 2007–2010. The results suggest that to optimize the industrial structure to the maximum extent in the future and promote the sustainable development of ecological resources and social economy in the Shiyang River Basin, economic changes, such as water-saving green agriculture and eco-tourism, should be developed.

Sustainable livelihoods are those that are able to cope with and recover from stress and shocks, and that maintain or strengthen livelihood capacity and livelihood capital, without damaging the foundations of the natural environment. In this paper, the IPHACT framework was constructed by improving the classic IPAT equation, and the key factors affecting production output and livelihood sustainability, as well as the factor differences among different livelihood strategy groups, were analyzed. We took 24 counties and districts of Ankang, Shangluo and Hanzhong in the Qin-Ba Mountain area of southern Shaanxi Province as examples, using a survey of farmers’ livelihood status and livelihood capital accounting. The results show that the amplification effect of population size on the environmental impact of livelihood output is widespread and generally significant. Both livelihood sustainability and livelihood benefit passed the significance test in the multi-model analysis, and the negative effect of livelihood sustainability proved the negative correlation between the environmental impact of livelihood output and livelihood sustainability, that is, the higher the livelihood output dependent on natural capital, the greater the environmental impact. The livelihood transformation of Hanzhong City is developing in the direction of reducing the environmental impact of livelihood output, and farmers have successfully practiced green livelihood transformation by changing their livelihood strategies. On the road to common prosperity, livelihood demand will inevitably increase. Reducing the dependence on natural capital is the key to effectively enhancing the sustainability of livelihoods.