Coaxial dielectric barrier discharge has extensive application prospects. A dielectric barrier discharge device with water electrode was used to investigate the discharge properties and spectral intensity emitted from active particles in the air by optical method. Results indicate that the optical emission spectra consist of spectral lines from oxygen atoms (777.5 and 844.6 nm), which implies that oxygen atoms with high chemical activity were generated in the discharge plasma. Through spatially resolved measurements, spectral intensities from oxygen atoms were given as functions of the experimental parameters such as the value of the applied voltage, the gas flow rate and argon content. Results show that the spectral line intensity from oxygen atom increases with increasing the peak value of the applied voltage, increases with increasing the gas flow rate, reaches its maximum with a gas flow rate of 30 L·min-1 and then decreases with further increasing the gas flow rate. Similarly, the spectral line intensity increases firstly and then decreases with increasing argon content (in a mixture of argon and air) and a maximum is reached when argon content is 16.7%.