官员腐败问题是当前中国政治领域中亟待解决的严重问题之一，水利系统同样面临着腐败风险正在加大的危险。党的十七大以来，查处的水利系统腐败官员数量不断增多，反腐败斗争越发复杂，遏制不断滋生和蔓延的水利腐败问题成为水利系统必须面对的严峻课题。本文建立了2008年至2014年期间水利系统腐败案例库。通过一套完整的指标分析体系，对水利系统腐败案例严重程度作出判断，提出腐败发生的主体特征、权力特征和行为特征等规律性认识。在案例研究的基础上，引入委托代理理论，深入分析水利系统腐败中的委托代理问题形成机制，并以该理论为视角阐释了水利系统腐败表现出的几个突出问题，最后从约束与激励两个角度提出对水利系统腐败治理的对策建议。本研究的创新之处在于首次对水利系统发生的腐败案例进行了系统梳理，辅之以大量数据统计和图表分析。在此基础上，引入委托代理理论作为理论分析框架，很大程度上增强了对水利系统腐败问题研究的理论性和实践性。

Officials Corruption is one of the most serious problems to be resolved in Chinese political field. The corruption risk in water conservancy sector is growing as well. Since the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, more and more corrupt officials in water conservancy sector have been investigated and punished. With the situation getting more complex, it becomes a serious task to control and overcome the growing and spreading corruption in water conservancy sector. The paper establishes a database of corruption cases in the water conservancy sector which occurred during the period of 2008-2012, builds up an index system for analysis, makes a fundamental judgment on the seriousness of such corruption cases, then proposes rational knowledge towards characteristics of subject, power and behavior, etc. Based on the case study, by utilizing principal-agent theory, it analyzes the forming mechanism of principal-agent problem, probes on several typical corruption problems in the water conservancy sector from the perspective of the said theory, and eventually suggests constraining and motivating solution to tackle corruption problems in the water conservancy sector. The paper systematically researches on corruption problem in water conservancy sector innovatively by case studying method as major tool. Meanwhile, it takes advantage of an amount of data statistics and figures analysis, and innovatively introduces principal-agent theory as new theory analysis frame and significantly enhances the theory and pragmatism of research towards corruption problem in water conservancy sector.