Abstract: The total number, maximum height and engineering scale of concrete dams in China rank the first in the world, and their long-term safety is a focus of public attention. Deformation is a comprehensive performance of concrete dam structures, especially the long-term deformation, a key index for evaluation of the structure behaviors, health status, and their evolution of a dam in long-term service. This paper summarizes the state of arts in creep calculation models for dam concrete and foundation rock and in the methods and models for safety monitoring and early warning of high concrete dam long-term deformation, based on analysis of the latest construction of concrete dams in China and concrete dam failures caused by long-term dam deformation. To ensure the safety of concrete dams in long-term service, future studies should focus on three issues: evolution of structure performances under the coupling effect of multi-factors, long-term structure deformation behaviors under the coupling effect of multi-fields, and evaluation of performance improvement under reinforcement measures.