Riparian zone is an active transition zone and ecotone of river and land ecosystem, with edge-effects and harbors higher numbers of species. Riparian ecosystem in the Lower Reach of the Yellow River has greatly degraded due to disturbance of human activities (such as hydraulic engineering construction, embankment along the lower river and farming) in recent years. In order to reveal the present status of riparian macro-zoobenthos and factors producing influence on them, a systematic survey was carried out at 8 sampling sections in aquatic banks of Shandong Reach, Yellow River in May 2005 at low flow conditions. The characteristics of macro-zoobenthos were described by the index of relative importance, Shannon-Weaver index, Margalef index and Pielou evenness index. Altogether 37 taxa were collected from the river bed and identified, including 3 annelids, 7 molluscs, and 27 arthropods (Table 2). The main components are aquatic insects (especially Chironomid groups). The average density and biomass of zoobenthos were 2 129 ± 436 ind/m2 and 2.20 ± 0.75 g/m2, respectively. The analysis of the spatial distributions of rever bed community structure indicated that species richness, abundance, biomass, dominant species and diversity varied significantly between each sampling sections (Fig. 2, 3, 5, Table 3), and exhibited irregular fluctuations, which indicates that riparian ecosystem in Shandong Reach of Yellow River has suffered severe disturbance by human activities. The comprehensive analyses indicated that channel cross-section morphology (such as width and habitat type of riparian zone) and oviposition behaviors of aquatic insects were the main factors to produce influence on the structure and distribution of the macrozoobenthos assemblages in Shandong Reach of Yellow River.