Modern fluvial sediments faithfully record the source signals of parent rocks and weathering conditions, as well as the transformation caused by chemical, physical processes and human activities during the transportation and deposition in the drainage basin, which are important media for exploring and verifying the sedimentological theories such as source- sink system.Based on the database of detrital components of global modern river sand, we summarized the distribution characteristics of petrographic and heavy minerals in different continents, and explored their applications in provenance identification, quantification of sediment contribution, evaluation of climatic and tectonic impacts during sediment generation and transport, and implications for the study of source- sink system.In future, it is suggested to strengthen the research on the compositional response to climatic, tectonic and human activities on the basis of big data analysis, sediment generation and production, sediment compositional variability with high time resolution, and differences among various provenance analysis methods.