Underwater images often suffer from many typical problems: in a complex optical environment, the quality of underwater images drops sharply, and features such as color and brightness are often attenuated seriously, which makes it difficult to improve the quality of underwater images. Polarization imaging can effectively suppress underwater scattering. In the underwater imaging environment, according to the polarization characteristics of the signal, backscatter and forwardscatter light, the impact of different components on the image is solved. Based on the underwater physical imaging model and the principle of polarization imaging, the principle of underwater polarization imaging is described in detail, and several classic underwater polarization imaging methods are emphasized. The current underwater imaging technology based on polarization characteristics is summarized, and according to their actual effect, these methods are evaluated and analyzed. What''s more, based on the advantages and disadvantages of the existing underwater polarization imaging technology and their actual results, the future development of the underwater polarization imaging technology is summarized.