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Membranes made of layer-stacked two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets have recently shown great promise for water filtration. At present, the reported water fluxes vary significantly, while the accountable structure and properties of MoS2 nanochannels are largely unknown. This paper aims to mechanistically relate the performance of MoS2 membranes to the size of their nanochannels in different hydration states. We discovered that fully hydrated MoS2 membranes retained a 1.2 nm interlayer spacing (or 0.9 nm free spacing), leading to high water permeability and moderate-to-high ionic and molecular rejection. In comparison, completely dry MoS2 membranes had a 0.62 nm interlayer spacing (or 0.3 nm free spacing) due to irreversible nanosheet restacking and were almost impermeable to water. Furthermore, we revealed that the interlayer spacing of MoS2 membranes in aqueous solution is maintained by comparable van der Waals and hydration forces, thereby ensuring the aqueous stability of MoS2 membranes without the need of cross-linking. In addition, we attributed the high water flux (30-250 L m-2 h-1 bar-1) of MoS2 membranes to the low hydraulic resistance of smooth, rigid MoS2 nanochannels. We also concluded that compaction of MoS2 membranes with a high pressure helps create a more neatly stacked nanostructure with minimum voids or looseness, leading to stable water flux and separation performance. Besides, this paper systematically compares MoS2 membranes with the widely studied graphene oxide membranes to highlight the uniqueness and advantages of MoS2 membranes for water-filtration applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]