As an important engineering system for integrated allocation of water resources and hydroelectric energy development in river basins, cascade dam systems exhibit complex systematic characteristics characterized by the superposition, transmission and amplification of multi-source risks during operation. With China’s vigorous promotion of basin cascade development and the continuous strengthening of dam safety risk management system construction, risk management of cascade dam systems has become a research priority in the field of hydraulic engineering safety. Concentrated on the risk transmission effects within cascade dam systems, advances in the aspects of risk probability calculation, loss assessment, risk classification and coordinated regulation were reviewed. It is pointed out that future research should focus on the high-fidelity simulation of dam-break flood propagation in cascade systems, the coupling analysis of multi-source risks, the improvement of risk assessment frameworks, the formulation of multi-dimensional coordinated regulation strategies and the construction of intelligent river basin management platforms, with the aim of systematically enhancing the risk prevention and control capabilities as well as the regulation level of cascade dam systems.