As a bio-physical quantitative assessment tool to estimate the sustainable utilization of natural resources, the ecological footprint model was proposed in 1992 by William Rees and developed in 1996 by Mathis Wackernagel. Many researchers put forward lots of suspicions and debates about its theoretic hypotheses, basic concepts, calculated methods, et al., which then help to improve and perfect the model itself. At present, many research about the ecological footprint model have been carried out in China. In these research papers, there are many debates about its theoretic hypotheses, equivalence factor, yield factor, calculated methods, over being static, lacking of prediction, and singularity of the results. Also, there are many improvements such as its concepts, calculated methods, equivalence factor, yield factor, long time series, integrating nonlinear scientific methods or other social and economic indices, et al. This paper focus on these debates and improvements of the ecological footprint model during the last 10 years. At last, several prospects are given to which the ecological footprint model will be applied, i.e. its calculated methods, and taking into account sustainble development policies. We must improve the ecological footprint model′s calculated methods and increase the application of ecological footprint method in environmental, social and economic study fields in China.