The tracing survey on the economic development situation in 12 years of 100 rural emigration households in Three Gorges Reservoir area in Yichang City shows that the emigrants resettled by local retreat mode not only stably passed transition period but also the economic situation of their families is better than the average level of the rural families in the whole city year by year，that the economic situation of the rural emigration families resettled outside the City declined at initial period but could gradually pass the transition period and catch up with rural average level，however，the economic situation of the families resettled by non-agricultural employment mode has big fluctuation，stays at low level in a long time and is the same as the level of urban poor families. Thus，agricultural resettlement mode by local retreat will become the first choice for rural emigrants in project construction in the future，the agricultural resettlement mode by emigrating to other places will be the second choice under the limitation of environment bearing capacity，however，the emigrant resettlement mode by non-agricultural employment should be carefully used in rural emigrant resettlement. The making of emigrant policy in reservoir construction should be guided by the theory of capacity poverty and capacity development and currently by the principle of “taking the land as the basis，mainly local retreat and then emigration to the nearby places”，should pay attention to the enlargement of environment capacity in reservoir area and the promotion of emigrant development capacity，should have the emigrant resettlement policy with difference and pertinence according to the emigrant families resettled by different resettlement modes，and overall conduct continuous tracing survey on the emigrants. The left-over problems in the non-agricultural employment resettlement should be properly solved in the subsequent emigrant resettlement in Three Gorges area.