The mild acid pretreatment and the combination of biological pretreatment by a white rot fungus Echinodontium taxodii or a brown rot fungus Antrodia sp. 5898 with mild acid pretreatment were evaluated under different pretreatment conditions for enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol production from water hyacinth. The combined pretreatment with E. taxodii (10 days) and 0.25% H(2)SO(4) was proved to be more effective than the sole acid pretreatment. The reducing sugar yield from enzymatic hydrolysis of co-treated water hyacinth increased 1.13-2.11 fold than that of acid-treated water hyacinth at the same conditions. The following study on separate hydrolysis and fermentation with Saccharomyces cerevisiae indicated that the ethanol yield from co-treated water hyacinth achieved 0.192 g/g of dry matter, which increased 1.34-fold than that from acid-treated water hyacinth (0.146 g/g of dry matter). This suggested that the combination of biological and mild acid pretreatment is a promising method to improve enzymatic hydrolysis and ethanol production from water hyacinth with low lignin content. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.