The Yichang to Wuhan river reach in the middle reaches of Yangtze River is the bottleneck restricting the Yangtze River golden waterway.With the navigation benefit of the Three Gorges project and the speeding up of the Yangtze River waterway construction during the “12th Five-Year-Plan” period,its channel depth will realize the planning goal in advance,but there is still a large gap between the navigation ability and growing economic demand for water transport.Based on the analysis of waterway regulation engineering effect,channel change characteristics and channel navigation condition,the article discusses the channel regulation thoughts.