Abstract: As an important link among regional resources, ecology and environment protection, interfacial hydrological process involves material circulation and energy exchange among different circles. Heat tracing of interfacial hydrological process is the focus and difficulty in future research due to the complex and widely-affected energy exchange process, notwithstanding its effectiveness in tracing hydrological process due to its low cost, easy operation and no pollution. In the present research, we made a review on the water and heat transport mechanism, heat tracing techniques, and typical heat tracing applications in the hydrological processes of rainfall-soil-groundwater, surface water-groundwater, as well as groundwater-sea water interfaces, and present the development trends in future: 1) scale effect in the interfacial hydrological process of heat tracing should be considered;2) multiple approaches are required to verify the uncertain heat tracing results; 3) novel temperature monitoring technique to monitoring large-scale and long-term interfacial energy change could be an effective means to improve the accuracy of results; 4) multi-dimensional water and heat transfer model suitable for different scales and types is the key direction of future research.

Key words: heat tracer, interface hydrological process, research progress, complex environment, development trend