Surface temperature of lakes and reservoirs is one of the important indicators of temperature change on the earth's surface, which not only reflects the impact of earth's climate change, but also has great significance for water resource management and ecological environmental protection. However, traditional temperature observation methods are limited by factors such as time, space and economic cost, which make it difficult to provide comprehensive and continuous temperature data. Therefore, the quantitative inversion of the surface temperature of lakes and reservoirs using remote sensing technology has become one of the hot spots in research. Based on this, this paper summarizes the relevant data sources and various research methods of remote sensing quantitative inversion of surface temperature of lakes and reservoirs in recent years, and elaborates and analyzes them, in order to provide reference for the ecological protection of lakes.