Abstract: Abstract: Renewable energy has become a major supply way to support sustainable regional development in low-carbon energy economies. One kind of renewable energy, wind energy has widely been utilized with many approaches, including wind-powered water pumping. Southern Xinjiang is featured with abundant wind energy, complex terrain, low rainfall, and a fragile ecological environment in the arid area of northwest China. Therefore, irrigation agriculture is essential to crop production, as in-season rainfall is inadequate to water requirement. A wind-powered water pumping can effectively alleviate the shortage of water resources, while reducing the dependence on fossil energy in Southern Xinjiang. In this study, a systematic potential assessment was made on the wind-powered water pumping for irrigated agriculture in Southern Xinjiang, northwest China. a) Two-parameter Weibull distribution was employed to evaluate the wind sources in Southern Xinjiang from 2000 through 2014, where the specific parameters were estimated by the least square. Then the data was effectively resampled using an ordinary Kriging interpolation on the platform of ArcGIS, thereby obtaining the distribution of wind power density in Southern Xinjiang. b) The evapotranspiration of regional crops and effective rainfall were utilized to calculate the actual requirement of irrigation water in Southern Xinjiang, further to examine the temporal and spatial distribution of required water resources. c) The total amount of wind-powered water was analyzed in the five regions of Southern Xinjiang, thereby calculating the proportion to the requirement of irrigation water in the non-artesian irrigation area. As such, a potential assessment on wind energy was achieved for the application of wind-powered water-pumping in different regions. The results were as follows: 1) The maximum wind power occurred in April in Southern Xinjiang, with an average density of 25.14 W/m2. It was found that Kizilsu Kirghiz and Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture presented relatively richer wind resources, compared with other regions. 2) The largest requirement of irrigation water appeared in August, indicating that seasonal changes were closely related to the local cropping system. The high requirements of irrigation water per unit were located mainly in Aksu Prefecture and parts of northern Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, as well as in the northeast and southwest research regions. Considering the size of irrigation areas, the amount of irrigation water was large in Aksu and Kashgar Prefecture. 3) The effective time and the distribution of wind were used to compute the water requirement for agricultural irrigation, and the suitable area for the construction of wind pumping projects in the five prefectures in Southern Xinjiang. The satisfaction rate of wind pumping was obtained to reveal the potential of wind energy for irrigated agriculture in Southern Xinjiang. The Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture was an optimal option to construct the wind-powered water pumping with high natural benefits. In addition, the economic benefits need to be further considered. The obtained knowledge on the potential of wind-powered water pumping can provide scientific support to make water-saving irrigation strategies and policies for regional agricultural development in Southern Xinjiang of China.