Abstract: The flood disasters are severe and frequent in China, and affect the safety of people's lives and property and social stability. The dike engineering is an important foundation of China's flood control system, which is characterized by long lines, many hidden dangers and frequent dangerous situations. At present, the dike rescue is still dominated by the huge-crowd strategy, and the rescue efficiency is low due to the fact that the evolution mechanism of the dike risks isn't yet understood systematically, the high-precision detection and rescue technology of hidden dangers in the dike and the equipments are insufficient, and the degree of technical equmipments for emergency rescues isn't high. Therefore, the National Key R & D Program of China"Evolution mechanism of dike risks, quick detection of hidden dangers, and technical equipments of emergency rescues" was carried out in the Yangtze River basin, the Yellow River basin, and the Songhua River basin etc., in order to improve the detection precision for hidden dangers in the dike and the efficiency of emergency rescues, aiming to promote the defense capability of the dike engineering. Many innovative results have been achieved in the fields of safety classification of dike engineering, evolution mechanism of dangers of typical dikes, risk assessment of safe operation of dike engineering, intelligent monitoring and early warning, quike detection of hidden dangers and technical equipments of emergency rescus, and so on, with remarkable social and economic benefits, broad application prospects and great significance.