Abstract: With the focuses of environmental risk assessment gradually evolving from assessment of single source or stressor, single exposure route and single risk receptor toward integrated assessment involving several sources or stressors, multiple exposure routes and multiple receptors in recent years, the cumulative risk assessment has become a study hot spot. Through concepts discrimination and literatures search, the development history and assessment procedure in the US, and the methods and practices of cumulative risk assessment both at home and abroad were reviewed. It was pointed out that there were several problems in conducting cumulative risk assessment in China, such as lack of assessment methods, lack of basic scientific data and urgent need of reinforcement of macro-environmental management policy and so on. It was suggests that the concept and management requirements of cumulative environmental risk assessment should be defined, the evaluation process, framework and technical guide be formulated, and the construction of foundational databases and practical explorations be reinforced as soon as possible，which can provide the decision support for the long-term effective environmental management.