Urban water governance has experienced several stages:pipe-end treatment,comprehensive treatment and system treatment.In order to meet the new environmental governance requirements of “clean water,green shore,beautiful scenery and excellent city”，the concept of functional governance is proposed on the basis of the above governance mode,whose advantage lies in the combination of traditional river and lake pollution control with urban development and the needs of citizens,so as to transform environmental management from ecological to human culture.This mode has been fully applied in the Shahe river project in Yichang.Results show that for urban water,to restore the river corresponding urban functions as the objective function of the governance mode is relatively simple to water quality of the physical and chemical indicators for the traditional mode of governance objectives have significant advantages.