Nowadays， while the flood problem is becoming more serious， there are certain limitations in the practices of urban design in China（such as Sponge City） from the perspective of water. Based on the clue of the “relationship between water and city ”， this paper proposes 3 strategies， “Separation”， “Interval”， “combination”， and their internal and external causes， by refining and discriminating the abstract structural models of 3 ideal cities in ancient China and 4 construction practices in modern Dutch cities， and then analyzes the water problems faced by the cities in different times and the livable reconstruction strategies. It shows that the successful design practice of urban design from the perspective of water is the comprehensive application of the various design strategies under the structural model logic of the relationship between water and cities.