It is significant to construct underground reservoir to utilize underground space and water resource and energy in goaf, and to promote environmental ecological protection of mining area. Based on typical worldwide cases, this paper discusses three utilization modes of underground space and water resources based on underground reservoir:underground storage and filtration reservoir, pumped storage power station, and development and utilization of mine geothermal energy. Compared with the previous UWR with the tunnel as the main space, the storage capacity is larger and the gangue in the caving zone can be purify the mine water. This makes the capacity of underground reservoir of mine increase greatly. On this basis, the paper summarizes two key scientific problems of underground coal reservoir in China:capacity of underground reservoir and stability control of underground reservoir in mine. Furthermore, the influencing factors of reservoir capacity and stability control of the dam body and the main research methods at the present stage are given, and the follow-up research direction of construction of underground reservoir in the production and resource exhausted mines is proposed.

resource exhausted mine  /  underground water reservoir  /  coal mine underground space  /  storage capacity  /  coal pillar dam