It is the premise of effective prevention and control of biological disasters to accurately define concept and clarify classification on them. The research progress on the definition and classification of biological disasters was reviewed at home and abroad. It was founded that the definition of biological disaster is not uniform at present. In order to solve the problems of inconsistent angles, lack of elements and inaccurate expressions, the accurate and complete definition of biological disaster should be divided into broad and narrow sense, including four elements: hazard, exposure, disaster-formative environment, and degree of harm. There are errors and repetition on the classification of biological disasters in the Chinese National Standard "Classification and Codes for Natural Disasters". The suggestions for Improvement were developed: forest/grassland fire should be juxtaposed with biological disasters, disease and insect pest as one tape should be divided into two tapes, and red tide disaster under marine disasters should be deleted. The possible future direction were discussed.

natural disasters  /  biological disasters  /  pests  /  hazard  /  exposure  /  disaster-formative environment