Abstract: The full implementation of River Chief System is a major institutional innovation to solve the new and old water problems and ensure the national water safety.Guiding the public to participate in an orderly manner can provide important support for the realization of this goal.Through the use of literature analysis,investigation and interview,questionnaire survey and descriptive statistics methods,this paper studied the situation of public participation in river and lake management in Hubei Province.The results showed that:(1) the quality of water environment in Hubei Province had been significantly improved since the nationwide implementation of the River Chief System in 2016;(2) Hubei Province lagged behind in terms of the quantity of environmental protection NGO,purchasing third-party services and launching the public to participate in water environment protection;(3) the defects of external system and the insufficient ability of the internal participants were the main reasons for the lower public participation rate in Hubei Province.Based on the research results,we put forward suggestions on improving the legal mechanism of public participation,strengthening the information disclosure,establishing mutual trust and accountability mechanism to upgrade the River Chief System of Hubei Province and ensure the water ecological security of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.