Abstract: Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have posed a threat to the human health, environment and animals, as they are persistent, highly toxic, biological accumulative and migrative. Waterbody is an important medium for the transfer and transformation of POPs in the environment. In waterbody, the growth, development and reproduction of aquatic organisms can be affected by POPs through migration, adsorption, sedimentation and food chain. This review summarized the reported results of the POPs monitoring and reviewed the occurrence and distribution of POPs in main water areas of China.As a main vertebrate, fish in the aquatic ecosystem is an important environmental indicator. In this work, the risk of POPs to fish that living in polluted areas was further evaluated according to the toxic data of POPs. This work would provide scientific evidence for revealing the environmental risk of POPs.