Abstract: Green roof has a significant influence on reducing runoff volume, delaying runoffyielding time, reducing the peak flow and improving runoff quality. This paper addressed the related research around the world and concluded from several aspects, i.e., the definition of green roof of different types, the mechanism how green roof manages runoff quantity and quality, the ability how green roof controls roof runoff, and the influence factors of green roof toward runoff quantity and quality. Afterwards, there was a need for more future work on research of green roof toward roof runoff, i.e., vegetation selection of green roof, efficient construction model selection of green roof, the regulating characteristics of green roof on roof runoff, the value assessment of green roof on roof runoff, analysis of sourcesink function of green roof on the water pollutants of roof runoff and the research on the mitigation measures of roof runoff pollution. This paper provided a guideline to develop green roofs aiming to regulating roof runoff.