Water environmental carrying capacity has become an important factor in the selection of basin and regional industries, which plays an important role in achieving social and economic coordinated sustainable development. The coordinated development of the economic, social and ecological environment in the South Dongting Lake area has been the focus of the government. As an example, this paper constructs the index system of water environment bearing capacity based on the concept of water environment bearing capacity, uses analytic hierarchy process to determine the weight of each index, and then analyzes the bearing capacity of regional water environment. In view of the characteristics of spatial differences in the water environment carrying capacity in the research area, a differentiated industry selection strategy is proposed.