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Quantifying of direct recharge derived from precipitation is crucial for assessing sustainability of well-irrigated agriculture. In the North China Plain, the land use is dominated by groundwater-irrigated farmland where the direct recharge derived from precipitation and irrigation. To characterize the mean rate and historical variance of direct recharge derived from precipitation, unsaturated zone profiles of chloride and d18O in the dry river bed of the Beiyishui River were employed. The results show that archival time scale of the profile covers the duration from 1980 to 2002 (corresponding to depths from 5 to 2 m) which is indicated by matching the d18O peaks in the isotope profile with the aridity indexes gained by instrumental records of annual precipitation and annual potential evaporation. Using the chloride mass balance method, the mean rate of the direct recharge corresponding to the archival time scale is estimated to be 3.8 +/- 0.8 mm year-1, which accounts for about 0.7% of the long-term average annual precipitation. Further, the direct recharge rates vary from 2.1 to 6.8 mm year-1 since 1980. Despite the subhumid climate, the estimate of recharge rates is in line with other findings in semiarid regions. The low rate of direct recharge is considered as a result of the relative dry climate in recent decades. In dry river bed, unsaturated zone profiles of chloride and d18O combined with instrumental records could offer valuable information about the direct recharge derived from precipitation during droughts. Copyright (c) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.