Because the brain edema has a crucial impact on morbidity and mortality, it is important to develop a noninvasive method to monitor the process of the brain edema effectively. When the brain edema occurs, the optical properties of the brain will change. The goal of this study is to access the feasibility and reliability of using noninvasive near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) monitoring method to measure the brain edema. Specifically, three models, including the water content changes in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), gray matter and white matter, were explored. Moreover, these models were numerically simulated by the Monte Carlo studies. Then, the phantom experiments were performed to investigate the light intensity which was measured at different detecting radius on the tissue surface. The results indicated that the light intensity correlated well with the conditions of the brain edema and the detecting radius. Briefly, at the detecting radius of 3.0 cm and 4.0 cm, the light intensity has a high response to the change of tissue parameters and optical properties. Thus, it is possible to monitor the brain edema noninvasively by NIRS method and the light intensity is a reliable and simple parameter to assess the brain edema.