It is important to study the contributions of climate change and human activities to cropland changes in the fields of both climate change and land use change. Relationships between cropland changes and driving forces were qualitatively studied in most of the previous researches. However, the quantitative assessments of the contributions of climate change and human activities to cropland changes are needed to be explored for a better understanding of the dynamics of land use changes. We systematically reviewed the methods of identifying the contributions of climate change and human activities to cropland changes at quantitative aspects, including model analysis, mathematical statistical method, framework analysis, index assessment and difference comparison. Progress of the previous researches on quantitative evaluation of the contributions was introduced. Then we discussed four defects in the assessment of the contributions of climate change and human activities. For example, the methods were lack of comprehensiveness, and the data need to be more accurate and abundant. In addition, the scale was single and the explanations were biased. Moreover, we concluded a clue about quantitative approach to assess the contributions from synthetically aspect to specific driving forces. Finally, the solutions of the future researches on data, scale and explanation were proposed.