The paper reviews the development of simulation of shallow water flow by the finite volume method(FVM) based on unstructured grid in recent years,and expounds the application of FVM based on unstructured grid,highly effective algorithms for normal numerical flux,reconstruction of physical variables and the balance between the hydrostatic pressure term and slope term.The paper also discusses the aspects needing further research,such as implicit solution by FVM based on unstructured grid,diminish of local one-dimensional error,and development of computing method with definite physical meaning to eliminate the artificial flow.