Potato is a globally important crop and its high production requires suitable soil conditions, including temperate soil temperature and good aeration. To explore the effects of irrigation methods and mulching on soil temperature, soil aeration, tuber yield, and water use efficiency (WUE), four years of field experiments were conducted in an arid region of Northwest China in 2007, 2008, 2014 and 2015. Treatments consisted of one furrow irrigation treatment with transparent plastic mulching (FT) and three drip irrigation treatments with transparent film mulching (DT), black plastic film mulching (DB) and non-mulch (DN), respectively. The results showed that furrow-irrigated soil had higher temperature and poorer aeration than the corresponding drip-irrigated soil. The use of plastic mulch increased soil CO2 concentration and decreased the soil oxygen diffusion rate (ODR) versus non-use of mulch. Transparent plastic mulch increased daily mean soil temperature throughout the growing season, while black plastic mulch increased soil temperature in the early and late growing season but reduced it during the tuber initiation and bulking stages. Specifically, daily mean soil temperature and CO2 concentration were respectively about 1 degrees C and 40.4 % lower for DB than those for DT throughout the growing season. Furthermore, during the tuber initiation and bulking stages daily mean soil temperature in the 0-20 cm layer of DB was 0.2-3.7 degrees C lower than that of DN, but the CO2 concentration did not differ, creating more favorable conditions for tuber growth. Potato yield under drip irrigation were 17 %-40 % and 21 %-40 % higher than under furrow irrigation in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Mean yield for mulched potato increased by 21 %-53 % compared to non-mulched potato and the corresponding WUEs improved by 12 %-59 %. Both yield and WUE were the highest in treatment DB among all treatments in 2007 and 2015. Consequently, drip irrigation with black plastic mulch was found to be an efficient agronomic approach to improve potato productivity and WUE by increasing soil temperature during early vegetative growth but decreasing soil temperature during tuber initiation and bulking with appropriate soil aeration.