According to the practice of urban active fault exploration and associated fault activity assessment conducted in recent years, this paper summarizes the problems encountered in geological, geomorphological, geochemical and geophysical surveys, and proposes the following means and suggestions to solve these problems. To determine the most recent faults or fault zones, emphasis should be placed on identifying the youngest active faults and offset geomorphology. To understand the history of faulting and to discover the latest offset event, it is suggested that geophysical prospecting, drilling and trenching be conducted on one profile.Because of significant uncertainties in late Quaternary dating, we advise systematic sampling and the use of multiple dating methods. Shallow seismic reflection has been proven to be the most useful method in urban active fault exploration. However, there is a pressing need to increase the quality of data acquisition and processing to obtain high resolution images so as to enhance our ability to identify active faults. The combination of seismic P-wave reflection and S-wave reflection methods is proved to be a powerful means to investigate the tectonic environments of the deep crust.