Wetland survey and monitoring is the prerequisite and foundation for comprehensively understanding and clarifying wetland ecosystem dynamics, and carrying out wetland conservation and restoration. Wetland Ecological Stations provide the platform for long-term wetland observation and in-situ experiments, which are indispensable in studying and revealing the processes, functions, as well as related mechanism of wetland change. There are some problems in the development of wetland ecological stations in China. Compared with the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network, the number and proportion of Wetland Ecological Stations in National Ecological stations are less and there are also some gaps on spatial planning of wetland ecological stations; in addition, wetland ecological stations are not laid out with obvious hierarchical structure (such as Master stations, Regular stations and Satellite stations), and the monitoring indicators and systems for wetland ecological stations are also not standard and uniform, which lead to limitations on monitoring and assessment of wetland ecosystem at national scale. In this study, we summarized and analyzed the status and problems in the development of Wetland Ecological Stations in China, and proposed the planning principles of the National Wetland Ecological Stations in existing National Ecological Stations System. We suggested that it should consider representativeness of wetland ecosystem types and the spatial distribution characteristics of wetlands in China, as well as to take account of the hierarchical structure of wetland stations and their combination to national development strategy and policy demand on wetland conservation and restoration. We proposed some targeted suggestions on spatial planning of China's Wetland Ecological Stations in the future based on the above principles. At the same time, the development orientation of wetland station was determined and the frontier and key scientific issues needing to be focused in the future were discussed, such as the changes of wetland landscape, lake eutrophication and invasive species control, climate change and carbon sequestration mechanism, etc. Finally, how to response to the national development strategy and policy demand was also analyzed. It is proposed to strengthen cooperation with international partners in the fields of biodiversity conservation and monitoring, climate change, transboundary wetlands and the conservation of migratory species.