It is one of the significant frontier issues that obtain the ages of water laid deposits in the quaternary geochronology. There are some new progresses in the following areas with the development of thermoluminescence: specific luminescence technique, luminescence method, luminescence mineral species, mineral grain size and statistical method of obtaining equivalent dose. Single aliquot regenerative dose protocol is used widely; the fast component of OSL signal can be measured by linearly modulated optically stimulated luminescence (LM OSL); single grain optical dating procedures have a certain advantage in identifying the fully bleached grains; quartz is more easily bleached than feldspar from the water laid deposits; more and more experiments demonstrate that coarse grains are more sensitive to light than fine grains; there is no statistic model among the numerous that can be used to measure the equivalent dose from all samples. On this basis discussed the significance of luminescence dating and future direction for water laid sediments in climate, tectonic, history of glacier movement and amount of soil erosion dominated by human activities research, provided comprehensively references in acquiring the latest research progress of the field.