The invention provides a large reservoir sounding reference field construction method and application. The method comprises the steps of reference field site selection: in order to meet the calibration technical requirements of various sounding devices, arranging reference points and reference surfaces in various forms, constructing a reference point, and constructing a reference plane. Research on sounding errors, positioning errors and water level correction errors can be carried out on the basis of the sounding reference point, including the nominal precision of a depth finder, the sounding mode, the actual sounding depth and the dynamic draft influence, positioning precision, GNSS data updating rate, difference method influence and the like, a water level calculation model and the like. Based on the depth sounding reference surface, depth sounding environment error research and GNSS three-dimensional water channel depth sounding precision research can be carried out. The influence research includesa wave effect, a positioning center deviation effect, a single-beam sounding attitude effect, a sounding delay effect, a ship speed effect, a beam angle effect, a coupling effect, water body characteristics, sounding sampling frequency and smoothing mode, sound ray tracking and multi-beam sounding system sounding point cloud precision analysis.