AbstractDevelopmental characteristics of dam-break research on earth-rock dam were reviewed and nowadays researchers emphasized corporation and paid more attention to quantitative description, multiple processes coupling and system integration in research. Combining with most concerned problems in dam safety management (DSM), achievements were reviewed in three fields: causal factors of disasters, dam-break process and flood propagation. In order to perfect a DSM system, researches on variations of dam material properties and corresponding effect in dam-break process, scale effect, similarity criteria of dam-break process and uncertainty analysis of common used models should be enhanced.