Livelihood risk perception,as the foundation for understanding human response,provides a new perspective for developing the adaptation mechanism and process of farmers responding to livelihood risks.At present,research on the perception of livelihood risk is mainly aimed at the environmental risk especially for climate change and extreme drought,and has rarely been extended to other areas such as social risk,economic risk and other livelihood risks.Taking the Shiyang River basin as an example,this paper investigates and analyzes farmers' livelihood risk perception,identifies the key factors that affect farmers' livelihood risk perception and their influential role,and reveals the formation mechanism of farmers' livelihood risk perception.The results indicate that:Livelihood risk perception is not high,the ability and level of livelihood risk perception is still low for respondents;living capital endowments,personality traits,intergenerational factors and ways of living are closely related to livelihood risk perception for surveyed households;the improvement of physical capital has a significant positive effect on the enhancement of livelihood risk perception for nonagricultural households;the improvement of financial capital has a significant negative effect on livelihood risk perception for agricultural households;the improvement of financial capital is significant (or not) negative effect on the enhancement of livelihood risk perception for whether agricultural households or non-agricultural households.