Abstract: To understand the research trend of China’s water eco-environmental governance, the relavant research papers indexed by the Web of Science database from 2004 to 2022 are examined via visualization approach using bibliometric tool Citespace. The core researchers, research hotspots and research trends in China are analyzed in emphasis. Results reveal that researches on the following aspects will be deepened: the evolution of water ecological environment, the eco-environmental impact of water projects, the water pollution control in river basins, the simulation of water environment,the protection and restoration of water ecology, the green sustainable science and technology and the biodiversity protection. Core researchers mainly come from universities and research institutes whose cooperation is conducive to the coordinated governance among water resources, water ecology, and water environment. Core topics of the researches lie in how to deal with the impacts of pollution, climate change and vegetation dynamics on waters. The construction of water pollution control evaluation system in plateau and arid areas, the predicaments of water eco-environmental governance posed by climate change, and the innovations and deficiencies of management and policy are the research fronts. In addition, logistic regression analysis, classification tree and other calculation models and empirical methods are current trends.

Key words: water eco-environmental governance, bibliometrics, Citespace, visualization, research front