Abstract: Environment issue is a key factor influencing the long-term sustainable development of shale gas industry, and the studies of environmental impacts of shale gas development are the basis for relevant policy-making. By choosing relevant studies in international academic journals our analyzed object, this paper firstly introduces the rise of studies on environmental impacts of shale gas development and identifies three main environmental impacts of shale gas development in current international literature, i. e. the impacts of shale gas development on water resource usage, water pollution, and greenhouse gases emission. Then, a detailed review of these three main research aspects is presented to understand the research status, main findings, differences among research results, and the reason of these differences for current environmental impacts studies. This review could be expected to provide some helpful references for China to carry out similar studies, especially quantitative studies in future.