Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is a comprehensive index to measure the amount of organic matter and reflect pollution degree of organic matter in water. Meanwhile, COD is also an important assessment index of environmental quality standard for surface water (GB 3838-2002). However, due to time consuming, the use of toxic and harmful reagents in the determination process and the easiness to produce secondary pollution, the current potassium permanganate and potassium dichromate COD determination methods are not environmentally friendly and cannot reflect the current rapid and real-time technical requirements. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a simple, rapid and efficient, sensitive and reliable, environmentally friendly and pollution-free green alternative detection method of COD. Firstly, from the perspective of bibliometrics by comparing total publication number of COD subject in China and the developed countries in the world, this study analyzes the urgency of developing alternative methods of COD in China. Based on the dataset of 706 samples covering a large range of COD concentration from 65 lakes and reservoirs in China, the high-precision linear relationship models between chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) absorption coefficient at 350 nm and 254 nm and COD concentration are constructed. In addition, the threshold and standard of CDOM absorption coefficient used to assess the surface water environmental quality was determined. Our linear models can be widely used to accurately and quantitatively characterize organic matter concentration and assess pollution degree in different types (deep and shallow water, large, medium and small area) and different trophic states (oligotrophic, mesotrophic, and eutrophic) of lake and reservoir waters with certain universality. By comparing the advantages and disadvantages of CDOM absorption coefficient and traditional COD measurement methods of potassium permanganate and potassium dichromate, this study demonstrates the feasibility and application prospect using CDOM absorption coefficient to substitute COD concentration for characterizing organic matter quantity and assess the pollution degree in lakes and reservoirs.