Dissociated water molecules are at the origin of corrosion and wet oxidation of metals. An atomic scale research is necessary to understand the processes involved in many material industries and the environment science. We investigate the steps leading to corrosion and wet oxidation of Cu(110) surface due to adsorption and dissociation of water molecules using scanning tunneling microscopy. Water is dissociated at 150K and seems to form H2O-OH mixed chain structures along the [110] direction. Growth of a single atomic Cu wire is observed nucleating at the step edges, along with the mixed water chain at high temperature around 180K. The strong bond between hydroxyl molecules and Cu produces the nonvolatile molecule-metal combined structure which is the alternating stripe of them. Further annealing the substrate over 300K dissociates water molecules to leave oxygen atoms on a surface, which form single atomic rows of Cu-O along the [001] direction. This allows us to analyze the inititial steps of wet oxidation of Cu at the atomic scale. The results provide fundamental views of the water related surface chemistry of Cu, with applications to surface engineering of copper-based electrode and catalyst.