Abstract: In order to alleviate the co-existing situation of severe water shortage and soil erosion, the Rainwater Harvesting Potential (RHP) over the Loess Plateau was estimated by using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, which is a large-scale distributed hydrologic model. Two Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) datasets and MODIS evapotranspiration product were used to characterize vegetation restoration and its water consumption rule over the Loess Plateau. The results show that mean annual temperature of the Loess Plateau increased markedly at a rate of 0.055 ℃/year over the past four decades. The vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau improved significantly with the implementation of “Grain-For-Green” project. With the impact of both vegetation restoration and high water losses resulted from climate warming, the evaporated water consumption of the Loess Plateau significantly raised during 2000-2014 (increased by 134×108 m3), which have made water shortage to be an increasingly severe issue. The annual mean evapotranspiration over the Loess Plateau is 2282×108 m3. The annual mean RHP on the Loess Plateau was 1807×108 m3, which was about 80% of annual mean evapotranspiration. Through cropping structure adjustment, soil water preservation, and soil water high efficient use, and rainfall-runoff regulation, the RHP was generally enough to support the vegetation restoration. There is considerable scope for RHP across the Loess Plateau, which could potentially provide enough water resources to the ecological restoration over the Loess Plateau.