Water Institution of China could be studied in broad and narrow frameworks. Related institutions of resources and the environment and even populations could all be nested in the broad framework，like flood control system， drainage system and irrigation system. However， this paper defines water institution of China in a narrow sense. Eight water systems are classified. They are total water withdrawal control system （TWWCS）， total water pollutant control system （TWPCS）， water resource fee system （WRFS）， water right transaction system （WRTS）， water pollutant right transaction system （WPRTS）， water eco-compensation system （WECS）， accountability system for water pollution （ASWPS） and payment system for damages of water pollution （PSDWP）. Some of these systems could be ordered logically： TWPCS is a prerequisite system of TWWCS， TWWCS is the prerequisite of WRFS and WRTS， TWPCS is the prerequisite of WPRTS. Instead of the prerequisite relationship， some of the systems hold substitutive or complementary relations: WRTS and WPRTS are complementary while these two systems were once carried out through a substitutive way under the WECS． Since 1978， these systems have evolved to deal with specific water issues and serve as institutional supports for water ecological civilization in China. TWWCS started in 1987 when the ″Water Resource Allocation Scheme for the Yellow River″ was launched by Chinas State Council. Followed by the Water Law of the People’s Republic of China in 1988， China began to implement the WRFS. The first practice of WRTS in China occurred in Zhejiang Province in 2000 and in the same period China began to implement the WECS based on the WRTS. Afterwards， WECS focused on both the quantity and quality of water as the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law of Peoples Republic of China （2008 Amendment） was introduced. TWPCS appeared in Shanghai in 1985 when the Headwater Protection Ordinance in Huangpu River was implemented and enterprises in Shanghai started to transfer their excess certified emission allowances since 1987. ASWPS and PSDWP were initiated in 1979 and 1991 respectively. Environmental Protection Law （Trial） of 1979 formulated the cases of political accountability while the economic accountability is defined by the ″Interim Sanction on Violations of Environmental Protection Law and discipline″ in 2006. The typical arrangement of PSDWP is the pollution liability insurance system which was first launched in Dalian in 1991 and was carried out nationwide since 2007. The empirical studies proposed in our study on the structural evolution of water institution demonstrate that the prerequisite， substitutive and complementary relationship holds between these different water system elements. Based on an Internet review of all the available water institutions between 1978 and 2014 of all the 31 provinces， we estimated the regulation intensity of water institution. The statistics analysis shows that provinces used to pursue outstanding performances in water institution but few provinces could outperform the other provinces in all types of systems. The statistics results also indicate that the provinces which executed water institutions earlier often hold significant advantages in institutional innovations but it is still not clear whether it can maintain the advantages．
