The river environment of many streams in Korea has been deteriorated through the rapid industrialization and urbanization since the early 1960s. Deterioration includes single-purpose channel works for flood control and dense riparian land uses such even as the covering of the channel, as well as water pollution. As a result, many streams have lost their precious river environment such as ecological habitat, river friendliness and riparian scenery. In the early 1990s, however, the necessity of restoring those channelized streams was felt among the river engineers as well as environmentalists in Korea. This article describes a summary of the literature review of the stream restoration guidelines and relevant publication including those published in Japan, Europe and USA. A special focus is on the Stream Corridor Restoration, which was recently in the USA in 1998. First, the meaning and background of stream restoration is reviewed. Last, a draft of the contents of the stream restoration guideline, which is being developed by the authors and their colleagues, is briefly introduced.