Coastal areas are located in marine-terrestrial interlaced zone. With their unique geographical positions, the coastal ecological risk assessment has both the complexity of regional ecological risk assessment and its own particularity. In recent years, due to the coastal economic development and the deterioration of ecological environment, coastal ecological risk has received more and more attention, but there are still lacking in further systematic study about the coastal ecological risk assessment. With the summary and analysis of the existing research results from home and abroad, based on land-ocean interaction plan and full consideration of the uniqueness, regionalism and complexity of the coastal zone environment, this paper made scientific conclusion on the definition of the coastal ecological risk assessment concept and its components from risk source, habitat and risk suffer-the three basic elements. Moreover, from risk source, risk suffer and comprehensive evaluation-the three aspects, it discussed in detail the related research topics, progress as well as main conclusions. Then, it analysed the characteristics and evaluation methods, and put forward the framework model of coastal ecological risk assessment. Finally, it analysed and proposed the existing deficiencies and future research direction, providing new ideas for future research on coastal ecological risk assessment.