129 surface sediment samples and the co-occurrence macrozoobenthos samples were collected from Lake Dongting during 2013-2015. Concentrations of six kinds of heavy metal-arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) in the sediment were measured and the species composition of macrozoobenthos was identified. The results showed that the average concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn were 17.2, 2.63, 56.9, 32.4, 38.4 and 96.3 mg/kg (DW), respectively. Based on the field data on the co-occurrence of sediments and macrozoobenthos and the concentrations of heavy metal, the screening level concentration (SLC) approach was induced to preliminarily explore the sediment quality criteria (SQC) recommended values of heavy metal for surface sediments from Lake Dongting. The calculated SQCs of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn of Lake Dongting were 11.97, 1.13, 42.03, 19.17, 23.63 and 67.54 mg/kg (DW), respectively. These SQC values were compared with those of different countries and regions. It was found that SQCs obtained in this study were close to the median values of the reference data. The SQCs of heavy metal in Lake Dongting came from different derivation methods were comparative. However, there is still some uncertainty when applied the values of SQC derived from screen level concentration approach. One reason responsible for the uncertainty of the SQCs is that the field data used to derive SQCs is limited. In addition of heavy metal pollution, many other factors can affect the distribution of macrozoobenthos, which will lead to relatively biased in the values of SQCs.