Evaporation of water is one of the major processes of mass and energy exchange between soil and atmosphere. It can significantly influence soil engineering properties. Especially, due to the global climate change in recent years, extreme drought events occur in increasing frequency. The geotechnical and geological engineering problems related to evaporation are becoming more and more prominent. A growing number of scholars are working on this issue. First of all, it is necessary to build a model of water evaporation in soil. Based on the model, one can then assess and forecast the water field information under the influence of climate. According to the published research results all over the world in recent decades, the models related to soil water evaporation were summarized and categorized in this paper. According to the theoretical bases, these models can be separated into six categories, surface energy balance model, water balance model, mass transfer model, resistance model, temperature-wind speed model and suction model. The research progress of each kind of model was introduced. The details of some representative models were presented. The relations and differences between these models, and their advantages, disadvantages and application conditions were discussed. Generally, the existing models paid more attention to meteorological factors rather than soil nature factors. As a result, they can be only applied to saturated sandy soil but not to unsaturated clayey soil. For this reason, some important research topics that should be well investigated in the future were proposed by considering the characteristics of this discipline and research background, including the evaporation model of unsaturated soil, clayey soil, cracked soil and the establishment of general evaporation model for different soils.