The predecessor of the Faculty of Water Resources and Hydroelectric Engineering was the Hydraulics Department of Northwestern Technical Faculty established in 1937. This faculty has a nearly 70-year teaching history. The teaching and research of the faculty closely merger with the characteristics in the northwest region of China. Therefore the graduates are always playing a significant role in the development in various institutes of hydraulic engineering and design. This faculty is involved in many important research projects sponsored by National Natural Science Fund of China and of Shaanxi Province, which is especially well-known for its key technologies to tackle the problems such as water management and exploration of water resource strategies in arid and semi-arid regions and large and medium-sized core projects of the upper and middle stream area of Yellow River. This faculty boasts mainly the specialties relating to hydraulics as well as other disciplines as follows: environmental engineering, agricultural civil engineering and electrical engineering. It also has close cooperation with its counterparts in Japan and Singapore. This faculty has won 3 second class prizes of National Science and Technology Progress Award and National Teaching Results Award in the recent 5 years.

This faculty consists of 10 departments, 11 laboratories and an institute of water resources and hydroelectric civil construction design. It offers 8 programs for doctoral degree among which 5 are national key disciplines, 13 for master's degree, and 6 for bachelor's degree. This faculty offers 2 post doctoral research programs as well. Besides, it also offers 2 programs for Engineering Master's degree: Hydraulic Engineering and Civil Engineering and Architecture. Moreover, the discipline of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering is established as the distinctive specialty among national universities with the core course's teaching team being of state level. It has also been authorized to build a national level key lab named Shaanxi Provincial Northwest Arid Area Eco-hydraulic Engineering National Key Laboratory Constructed Jointly by Province and Ministry.

In the faculty there are 36 professors, 30 associate professors, 204 doctoral students, 453 postgraduates, and 1369 undergraduates.