Characteristic of water scattering is very important for researches on water color remote sensing and aquatic ecology. The inherent optical properties of water samples collected in Lake Taihu from Nov. 8 to Nov. 21 in 2007 were analyzed, and the scattering characteristics and relative factors were researched. The results showed that, the scattering coefficient was reduced with increasing wavelength according to power function. The average power index is -0.82±0.21, and the variation coefficient is 25.39%. Both slope and power of the particle size distribution function are linearly correlated with the scattering coefficient of ln(550nm)/ln(756nm). The correlation coefficients (R²) are 0.894 and 0.783 respectively. Negative correlation between the backscattering rate and the concentration of inorganic suspended was found and R² was 0.854. Correlations between refractive index and the inorganic suspended solids concentration and between the ratio of inorganic and organic were negative, and the coefficients (R²) were 0.851 and 0.781 respectively.