A significant body of research has dealt with cotton to increase the yield, water use efficiency (WUE), and nutrients uptake. This review is an impression and conclusion from these recent research to suggest appropriate crops operations for cotton in terms of irrigation, fertilization and plant density to achieve high yield with high water use efficiency, NUE and PUE. A review of the results of this research together can suggest: 1) under drought stress, high density without N consumption and vice versa, in optimal irrigation conditions, low density with N consumption, are preferable crop operations to increase yield and resource use efficiency. 2) Moreover, P or PSB bacteria consumption to control overgrowth and increase reproductive organs in conditions of high N supply or/and high density is a useful crop operation in all irrigation regimes, with higher PUE in drought stress than optimal irrigation conditions. Uptake and the response of plants to N and P are determined by sink and source, respectively. High Plant density and restricted irrigation increase Leaf/Boll ratio (sink limitation), thereby decrease NUE and increase PUE. Different and sometimes contradictory results have been obtained from cotton field research in recent years, and this review is a concise and understandable interpretation of this research