Abstract: The accelerated change of the glacial environment due to the global warming and human activity is significant Glacier lakes outburst has become a serious disaster in mountainous areas. In order to understand the glacier lake outburst and find a reasonable assessment way for the glacier lake outburst assessment,this article summarizes these main methods for glacier lake outburst assessment developed by the researchers fromal over the world,explants some problems existing in current studies and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of each methods. Finally,some new ways in the future research are discussed,which gives some information and suggestions for the future study.