Abstract: The coal resources in semiarid-arid northwestern China are charactered with rich reserves, shallow buried, but short water source. The water fracture zone of overburden rock due to coal mining could develop to the surface, destroying the shallow water resources, causing the loss of phreatic water, drying up the surface water, and deteriorating the ecological and geological environment. Therefore, the implementation of water resources protective exploitation(water preserved mining) is the only choice for the coal mining in northwestern China. This paper discussed the history and status of water preserved mining,analyzed the basic condition and mechanism of goaf water storage, yielded the predicting approach for the amount of goaf water, showed the quantity and quality of goaf water with an example, and suggested that the goaf water storage is the most effective way for the shallow buried coal mining in the northwestern arid areas of China.