Palaeoflood hydrology, as an extended field of flood disaster research, has gained great achievements based on sedimentary records extracted from rivers. However, these river palaoeflood studies have limitations due to the short duration and incompleteness of sedimentary records. Lake sediments as a more efficient archive, however, often record a temporally complete palaeoflood sequence. This article reviews four most commonly applied methods to identify and reconstruct palaeofloods from lake sediments, that is, lithology and grain size, geochemical indicators, statistical analysis, and eliminating mass- movement from palaeoflood layers. Subsequently we explore the causal relationship between palaeofloods and change in continental scale atmospheric circulation and regional climate change. Finally, we discuss the prospects of several studies, including the physical mechanism of palaeoflood events and climate change, comparative study of lake palaeoflood records and regional river paleoflood records, and palaeoflood research in lakes, especially mountain lakes.