Various factors governing the accumulation, dispersion and form exchanges of heavy metals at sediment water interface of estuaries are discussed and reviewed. Concentrations and bioavailabilities of heavy metals in estuaries depended on many different processes, including:①mobilization of metals of the porewater and their chemical properties;②transportation of metals at sediment water interface;③sediment components;④organism activities, and⑤effect of water current washing and disturbance, bioturbulence, salinity, redox and pH on the processes. So far some conclusions have been achieved:①concentration and distribution of heavy metals in major estuaries and adjacent areas were measured;②sequential extraction procedure for the specification for heavy metals have been presented and widely applied to study on metal behaviors in water environment;③research on relationship between organism growth and content of heavy metal in organism was made by in situ measures and indoor toxic culture experiments;④lots of experiments for sorption and desorption of heavy metals on various material have been completed and presented many isotherm equations;⑤several methods for determining background values of metals have been set up. Some problems to be resolved in near future are those:①quantitative study on biogeochemical cycling model of heavy metals;②metal release from sediments would become another source of pollution and must be pay attention to;③international standard analysis for heavy metals, especially for specification determinations, should be set up.