With the help of the CiteSpace software, this paper conducted a quantitative analysis based on 4.060 effective documents of Water Resources Protection from 1985 to 2020, and carried out co-occurrence analysis and emergence detection on the authors, research units and Keywords of the corresponding documents, so as to explore the evolution of research topics, historical hotspots, core authors and research institutions since the publication of Water Resources Protection. The results show that since its inception, the volume of Water Resources Protection has shown an overall upward trend. Influenced by national policies and social issues, the research direction has changed from the stage of focusing on water resources development and utilization at the beginning of the publication to the stage of comprehensive utilization of water resources in the perspective of “human water harmony” in 21th Century, and then to the stage of comprehensive research involving the process, mechanism, protection and impact of human water coupling system in recent years. The research content has changed from single-factor analysis to multi-factor coupling research, and from traditional water quality or quantity analysis to water resources and virtual water development and management guided by the the strictest water resources management system. The temporal-spatial scale has been continuously expanded, the temporal-spatial resolution has been further refined, and the research perspective has evolved from single dispersion to cross integration. The research means are moving from traditional ground observation and statistical analysis to process monitoring and digital coupling simulation supported by multi-source data. The knowledge research is weakening while the methodological research is deepening.