Underwater Visible Light Communication (UVLC), as an important branch of underwater wireless communication technology, is widely used in the field of marine environmental monitoring and underwater military struggle. This paper first briefly introduces the research background, significance and difficulties of UVLC. Then we summarize the underwater visible light channel modeling technology from three aspects including optical attenuation modeling, vertical channel modeling and turbulence channel modeling. Finally, we investigate the research results related to different underwater visible light modulation technologies. It can be seen from the analysis that the modeling of optical attenuation in the horizontal direction of UVLC tends to be perfect. At present, there is no accurate and complete model of underwater visible light turbulence and vertical channel. On the other hand, intensity modulation is the mainstream in underwater visible light modulation technology, while coherent modulation is usually used to improve the reliability of the system. The possible development direction of UVLC in the future is also discussed from the perspective of constructing UVLC network and adaptive modulation coding.