This paper presents an adaptive rationalized Haar function approximation method to obtain the optimal injection strategy for alkali-surfactant-polymer (ASP) flooding. In this process, the non-uniform control vector parameterization is introduced to convert original problem into amultistage optimization problem, in which a new normalized time variable is adopted on the combination of the subinterval length. Then the rationalized Haar function approximation method, in which an auxiliary function is introduced to dispose path constraints, is used to transform the multistage problem into a nonlinear programming. Furthermore, an adaptive strategy proposed on the basis of errors is adopted to regulate the order of Haar function vectors. Finally, the nonlinear programming for ASP flooding is solved by sequential quadratic programming. To illustrate the performance of proposed method, the experimental comparison method and control vector parameterization (CVP) method are introduced to optimize the original problem directly. By contrastive analysis of results, the accuracy and efficiency of proposed method are confirmed. (C) 2018 The Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China, and Chemical Industry Press. All rights reserved.