Abstract: The development of shale gas in North American has opened a new era for unconventional gas resources exploration and development,and attracted the attention all over the world.But geological characteristics,resources and economic evaluation effects of unconventional gas are still uncertain,especially in the area outside North America.Socioeconomic and environmental impacts form the development and utilization of unconventional gas remains to be studied.Unconventional gas exploration and development evaluation studies show that unconventional gas geological characteristics and distribution are different from the conventional gas resources,and it is much more difficult in the case of unconventional gas extraction.Resources evaluation are different in conventional and unconventional gas,and it is much more uncertainty.Economic and technological evaluation methods are mainly the net present value model and the uncertainty analysis model.Socioeconomic and environmental impact studies focus on description of the status quo and comparison of unconventional gas substitution effect.Comprehensive researches which combine consideration of resources,technology progress and economic cost factors with the diversity and particularity of the gas should be done in the future.In the field of socioeconomic and environmental impacts,the methods are relatively simple,and have not yet formed perfect research methods and the model systems.All in all,there is a big research space and the necessity in this field.