Abstract: In karst areas of China, the natural resources and environment have some serious problems, which constrain the development of social economy. The Central Government has promoted the scientific and technical innovation and ecological civilization construction vigorously since the Eighteenth National Congress of Communist Party of China. Scientific and technical innovation can not only helps to face and solve the resource and environment problems in karst areas, but also promote the development of karstology, and provide service to the ecological civilization construction. The research on karst in the future should concentrate on the following aspects: to implement the application of earth system science in karstology, exert the regional advantages of China on the karst research, and explore the characteristics and significant processes of critical zones in karst areas of China; strengthen the research on the response of karstification to global change, the rate of carbon cycle and stability, and establish the permanent mechanism towards extremely climate; consider the influence of paleo-magnitude and paleo-climate on paleo-karst; explore deeply the functions of microbes to the formation of carbonate rock; summarize systemically the experiences and problems of the first phase improvement project on rock desertification control in China, in order to better guide the control work in the next step; pay attention to the declaration of karst natural heritage in terms of the karst boundary between north and south; apply the big data technology to the karst resources and environment as well as hydrogeological research, improve the warning and forecast research on geological hazards, and the research on the shortage of resources to serve our country. 