Abstract: Water disaster in tunnel engineering is a problem in tunnel field. Therefore, this paper summarizes the literature of water disaster prevention in tunnel engineering, defines the problem of water disaster in tunnel engineering, analyzes the basic characteristics and constituent elements, discusses the formation mechanism of water disaster, materials, concept and technology, and looks forward to the future development. The findings show that the water disaster of tunnel engineering is composed of three parts: disaster source, water inrush channel and waterproof rock structure. Now, the water disaster mechanism is unclear, which makes it difficult to achieve active prevention of disasters. All kinds of water disaster prevention materials have advantages and disadvantages. Among them, non-water reacted polymer grouting materials have achieved remarkable results in the sealing of tunnel leakage and water inrush, but it still needs to be further studied in the multi-scale interaction mechanism with rock and soil, the diffusion law under the condition of multi field coupling, and the development of modified polymers with special properties. The accuracy of single advanced geological prediction technology is low, in the future, we should strengthen the research on the theory and equipment of tunnel comprehensive advanced geological prediction technology based on joint parameter inversion. Key issues such as the anti-dispersion ability of grouting materials under high temperature and high-pressure dynamic water environment, the time-space characteristics of slurry viscosity, the interaction between slurry and water, and supporting process equipment still need to be further studied. Comprehensive detection technology of tunnel leakage based on AI, 5g, Internet of things and big data analysis needs to be developed. Finally, three future development directions are proposed, including the concept of tunnel life-cycle waterproofing, the tunnel multi disaster collaborative prevention system, and the theory and practice of resilient tunnel.