The physical and psychological stress of urban youth groups have become an urgent issue in urban development. A large number of previous studies have confirmed that the positive benefits of waterfront spaces on the recovery of psychological stress in urban youth groups. However, there is still a lack of in-depth research on the differences in the effects of different waterfront space characteristics on the recovery of stress and their working mechanisms at the micro-scale. According to the theory of stress recovery and related previous researches, four types of waterfront spaces were summarized, including natural grass slope type, artificial fence type, artificial hydrophilic type, and mixed type. A virtual reality technology was applied to construct VR scenes, and a VR visualphysiological feedback interaction experiments were carried out to collect instantaneous electrodermal activity (EDA) from 30 subjects as sampling replications. The VR visual-physiological feedback experiment was conducted to collect instantaneous electrodermal activity (EDA) feedback data from the 30 subjects, which revealed the differences in the effects of different waterfront space characteristics on stress recovery. The results showed that 1) the hydrophilic waterfront space has significant stress-relieving benefits. Subjects in all four waterfront space scenarios showed a trend of decreasing stress levels, confirming the recovery benefits of urban waterfront spaces on psychological stress. The stress recovery efficiency of the scenarios with different degrees of hydrophilicity was different. The mixed type, artificial hydrophilic waterfront and natural grass slope type had significant stress-relieving effects compared to the artificial fence type waterfront. This suggests that hydrophilic waterfronts could have a high sense of restoration and relaxation, compared to the waterfront spaces that lack open space and isolate pathways for human-water interaction. Therefore, it is important to increase the num’s interaction with water. 2) Well-designed hybrid waterfronts had the best stress recovery, whereas man-made fences were lack in stress recovery. The hybrid waterfronts were more restorative than natural grassy slopes and artificial hydrophilic waterfronts, suggesting that grassy slopes or hard waterfronts with a single shoreline form had limited restorative potential. Additionally, this also demonstrated that the stress recovery effect was not linearly related to the size of the green space. In additionally, well-designed hybrid waterfront spaces had the best stress recovery. Therefore, the design layout of the waterfront space should focus on diversified treatment, and the green vegetation environment should be controlled within a reasonable range. Mixing the design of both and above elements could help to enhance the restoration benefits for visitors. 3) The difference in the restorative benefits of stress between the natural grass slope type and the artificial hydrophilic waterfront space was not obvious. The restorative benefits of natural grassy slopes were lower than those of artificial hydrophilic waterfronts, which may be due to the fact that artificial hydrophilic waterfronts had a certain design that makes them more attractive to youth groups. It may also be dueto the lack of spatial utilization in the natural grassy slopes type of waterfront.Subjective questionnaire data is an important research method, while objective physiological data can provide quantitative support, using a combination of subjective and objective data of the experimental method can be mutually corroborated, resulting in a more scientific and rigorous argumentation of the experimental results for the design of the waterfront space to provide qualitative and quantitative reference basis. In the face of the ever-deepening humanistic thinking and development paradigm research on urban waterfront space, it is necessary to shift the focus of future research from macro-scale theoretical research on “planning mode” to applied research on “scene creation”, including waterfront space, in order to effectively enhance the practical depth and application efficiency of urban waterfront space planning and construction. It is recommended to shift the focus of future research from the theoretical study of macro-scale “planning model” to the applied study of “scene creation”, including waterfront space, in order to effectively improve the practical depth and application efficiency of urban waterfront space planning and construction.