Abstract:CiteSpace literature data visualization software is used to analyze the number of publications, publication trends, keyword frequency and emergence status of research on the application of environmental DNA(eDNA)technology on river ecosystems. This article reviews the key points of eDNA technology application research on river ecology, including biological invasion, rare species detection and monitoring, biomass estimation, biodiversity detection and analysis, spawning and reproduction investigation, etc. to point out that future research on the application of eDNA technology on river ecosystem should focus on the quantification of relationship between the eDNA concentration and influencing factors, the enrichment of public databases, the design of universal primers, and the formulation of the whole process standard of eDNA technology, etc.