Water LiDAR detection technology offers unique advantages such as being unrestricted by sunlight, enabling continuous day and night observations, and allowing flexible adjustment of vertical and lateral scanning resolution. It can obtain vertical distribution information of underwater optical characteristics, including scattering and attenuation, as well as water quality parameters such as particulate matter and chlorophyl. With the ongoing developments in high repetition rate, high power, and narrow pulse width laser technology, water LiDAR has found extensive applications in hydrological measurement, river and lake surveys. This article introduces the basic structure of water LiDAR, summarizes the research status and existing problems of LiDAR technology in the field of water quality and aquatic optical detection at home and abroad in recent years, and provides prospects. The research believes that the three-dimensional radiation transmission simulation of laser beams and echo signals, calibration verification, and multi-source data fusion will be the focus of future research on water LiDAR. By summarizing and sorting out the application research results of existing water LiDAR and clarifying the problems, it lays an important foundation for the application of water LiDAR in the water conservancy industry and provides a reference basis for a deeper understanding and grasp of the research direction of water LiDAR applications.