Abstract: The advances in control and environmental risk management of industrial effluents and municipal sewage in developed countries and China are reviewed in the paper.Compared with the developed countries,the chemical monitoring is now the only tool used in China for the control of discharges which mainly relies on a few parameters such as COD,and this approach is unable to regulate the discharges with complex mixtures of toxic organics Ecotoxicity assay can be used for the same time to supply the gap to control the release of toxic organics effectively based on the requirements of environmental risk management.Toxicity identification evaluation for identifying the key toxicants causing the ecotoxicity are a core of reducing the environmental risk of discharges.The discussion and prospects are also described for the application of ecotoxicity assay to the control and environmental risk management of discharges in China.