Water governance is the basic work to promote Chinese path to modernization. A systematic review of the research progress and methods of water governance can not only clarify the direction of theoretical research

but also provide more effective guidance for practice. Based on the literature of water governance in CNKI and CSSCI journals

this study adopts CiteSpace to conduct bibliometric analysis to identify hot spots

research trends

and research methods of water governance in China. The results show that: 1)the research on water governance continues to increase; 2) the water governance research topics mainly focus on water environment

water leakage

coal muddy water

and river chief system; 3) the qualitative research occupies the dominant position

but the quantitative research becomes increasingly popular; 4) the comparative research plays an important role in the research methods. This study is helpful to improve the knowledge system of water governance

and provide reference for future research.