Abstract: With the continuous increase of shale gas production in China, the associated water production is also increasing, which is the mixture of the water used for hydraulic fracturing and the brine retained in shale formation. During the treatment of produced water, valuable elements such as lithium, potassium and bromine are further enriched and concentrated, especially lithium resources, which has broad prospects for development and utilization, and can alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand of strategic resource lithium in China. In this paper, the shale gas resources in Sichuan are introduced and summarized mainly. And the ion content in the produced water of shale gas in Weiyuan and Changning areas in southern Sichuan is listed respectively. At present, the produced water volume of each well in Weiyuan and Changning is 19 800 m³ and 15 293 m³ respectively, and the lithium content in most of the produced water is 10.62-58.96 mg/L, which has high economic utilization value. The reserves and prospects of lithium resources in the produced water of shale gas are predicted. The applicability of extraction method, membrane separation method and adsorption method to the extraction of lithium in shale gas produced water are summarized, which provides the reference for the comprehensive utilization of lithium resources from shale gas formation in southern Sichuan.