Abstract: Nonlinearities, uncertainties, and complex biochemical reactions are the main characteristics of the urban wastewater treatment process. It is challenging to ensure that the effluent water quality within the specified range is subject to strong interferences such as the flow of influent water, the composition of the influent water and weather changes. Model predictive control has been widely used in urban wastewater treatment in recent years due to its advantages of solving nonlinear system and problems with explict constraints. This study introduces the reasearch status of model predictive control method in urban wastewater treatment process based on mechanism model and data-driven, and elaborated the control effect under different models and control variables. Finally, problems that still need to be solved in the urban wastewater treatment process are presented. Future research directions of the model predictive control in the urban wastewater treatment process control are suggested.