The researches of early warning system have developed 30 years since the concept of early warning was advocated in The International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction by the United Nations in 1990. By tracing the development processes of early warning research in international fields, the research framework and the main elements, the research advances of various slow and sudden disaster risks, the participants and their functions in early warning system were analyzed in details. Then the huge gaps between the Chinese environmental early warning researches and international research were pointed out. The suggestions were proposed:the domestic research of environment early warning needs to strengthen the concept of people-oriented urgently; the conventional research methods of extensive and fuzzy treatments of various environmental risks in the region should be broken through and the different issues of environmental risk are to be carried out with scientific and systematic study; the construction of software and hardware systems, as well as the operation details on public reception, acceptance and response to early warning information should be taken into account; the research should collaborated with relevant institutions and organizations in information technology exchanges in different regions and areas, and the mechanisms of allowing stakeholders to participate widely in building the early warning system need to be built urgently. The suggestions above will be helpful to enhance the applied value of the research findings of domestic environmental early warning researches in practice. The future domestic researches of environmental early warning can provide strong and effective supports for accurate environmental emergency management.