Abstract: As a matter of fact,a river is an open system,not an isolated system or a closed one.In this paper,the changes of the entropy,the entropy production and the rate of energy dissipation in river adjustment are analyzed by using the principle of classical thermodynamics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics.It is shown that the entropy is different from the entropy production,the minimum entropy production is equivalent to the minimum rate of energy dissipation,and an alluvial river can adjust itself in accordance with the theory of minimum entropy production or the theory of minimum rate of energy dissipation rather than the principle of maximum entropy.