Enormous pressure on environment was given by the traditional linear living pattern.Recently,for improving the efficiency of using resources and achieving sustainable development,study on socio-economic metabolism has increasingly become the focus problem in science field.This paper discussed the international research about socio-economic metabolism in three parts.The research background of socio-economic metabolism was presented firstly.In this part,the differences among material flow,resources flow or metabolism were pointed out.Study on material flow focused on the character about material flowing process in specified region.However,it ignored the relationship among each part the process.Resources flow research emphasized efficiency of using resources by the analysis on internal alternative process.Whereas,metabolism put much attention on the material amount out and in socio-economic system,the environmental effect taken by the material.Then,the basic study on socio-economic metabolism was given.This part contained study on metabolism throughput in different levels and quantitative analysis about metabolism.The throughput was mainly divided into 3 levels,they were national,regional and familial.In the rough,there were four ways to analyse socio-economic metabolism.They were MFA(Material flow analysis),EFA(Energy flow analysis),HANPP(Human appropriation of net primary production)and ecological footprint.Thirdly,correlative researches of metabolism were pointed out,there were relations among metabolism and land use and land cover change(LUCC),environmental effect,and sustainable development.Lastly,some advices were put forward.Besides making the research ways perfectly,the main respect was to go deep into the analysis between metabolism and LUCC.Especially,study on socio-economic metabolism's driving function to LUCC should be intensified.And some researches on the feedback mechanism among policy,behavior and metabolism were urgently needed.Sensitive region in the ecosystem should be taken account of metabolism.Especially,environmental effect taken by metabolism should be intensified.Some factors related to socio-economic metabolism could be taken into account in the appraisal of sustainable development and recycling economy.