Abstract: Wing the industrialization and urbanization, the industrial and municipal waste water becomes the main pollution source to ambient water bodies. Developed countries have established the whole effluent toxicity assessment technology system for the the complex waste water with the implementation of the best applicable technology (BAT) policy. They applied ecological tests and evaluation indices in the waste water management. Test methods of effluent biological toxicity obviously vary among the countries and regional organizations. The USA, Canada and Australia developed a number of methods for testing native species consicering their vast territories, diverse climate types and biological diversity. The European regional organizations and the Germany government paid much attention to development their standard methods for the model species, as well as genotoxicity and endocrine disruption. It makes the testing results from different countries comparable within the same frame, and helps to uniform the discharge limits. New Zealand and the UK are island countries with short rivers. They paid much attention to the coastal ecosystem, so that more toxicity tests were developed for marine organisms. Since the research on the effluent toxicity in China was lately started from the 1980s, it is far away from the requirement of management application. The establishment of the effluent toxicity testing technology system in China should be accomplished step by step by learning the experience from developed countries.