Abstract: Rivers provide numerous benefits to human beings, some of them are irreplaceable. However, rivers in many areas in the world are not safe for human beings or aquatic life because of the aging infrastructure and rapid pace of economic development. Macroinvertebrates are influenced by a wide range of environment factors, and the appropriate bioindicators of river ecosystem health and their diversity and community structure can be used to predict the river ecosystem health. An investigation was carried out in September 2011 to research the community structure and functional feeding groups of macroinvertebrates in the Golmud River. The results showed that aquatic insects were the main components of macroinvertebrates in the Golmud River. [WTBX]Baetis[WTBZ] spp., [WTBX]Amphinemura[WTBZ] spp., [WTBX]Limnodrilus[WTBZ] spp. and [WTBX]Orthocladius[WTBZ] spp. were the dominant taxa, and [WTBX]Baetis[WTBZ] spp. was the only taxon collected at all the sample sites. Both the average density and biomass in the Golmud River were very low due to the harsh habitats. There was a significant difference in community structure of macroinvertebrates among the sample sites, and their functional feeding groups were very similar. CollectorGatherer was the main components in the Golmud River, followed by shredder, predator and filtercollector, and scraper was not collected at all the sample sites. Based on the features of the Golmud River, a comprehensive assessment index was developed to evaluate the river ecosystem health. Among the sample sites, Golmud 5 was in “health”, and the rest sites were in “subhealth”. The overall river ecosystem was in “subhealth” because of the low vegetation coverage, riverbank erosion, increased autotrophic index and decreased macroinvertebrate diversity.