The Navigation Law of People’s Republic of China is promulgated and implemented in 2015,marking that the construction and development of China’s water transport has entered into a new phase of systematic governance and legal protection.Taking the Yangtze Estuary waterway as an example,the progress of waterway planning and construction and the practical experiences of waterway legal governance in recent years are systematically reviewed and summarized,and the prospects of waterway development with new situations and requirements are discussed.The practice of legal governance of the waterway has shown that the waterway system of “one main channel,two sub-channel,and one branch channel” in the Yangtze Estuary has been rapidly improved under the guarantee of the rule of law.The 12.5 m deepwater navigation channel has been kept safe,unobstructed,and stable throughout the year,the navigational condition of the South Passage has been significantly improved,the waterway resources have been protected solidly and effectively,and the comprehensive management of the Yangtze Estuary has also been promoted,such as river regime stability,mudflat regulation and estuary ecological environment protection.At the same time,the following countermeasures and prospects for promoting the legal governance of the Yangtze Estuary waterway are proposed:1)accelerate the construction of the waterway system;2)accelerate the improvement of the safety and resilience of the 12.5 m deepwater navigation channel;3)strengthen the support system of the waterway;4)intensify efforts to promote the digital,intelligent,and green transformation and development of waterways;5)strengthen waterway protection and collaborative governance.The research results can help strengthen the awareness of legal governance of waterways,promoting the improvement of the quality of the Yangtze Estuary waterway system construction and the level of comprehensive estuarine management,and can provide useful references for the high-level protection and governance of China’s water transportation infrastructure.