Extensive human activities, including industrialization, intensive agriculture, and urban construction, coupled with the accelerated pace of socio-economic development, have significantly precipitated and caused a measurable surge in heavy metal concentrations in soil environments. This environmental issue severely degrades the quality of natural environments, thereby engendering substantial threats to human health and ecological safety. Conventional risk assessment techniques have focused on quantifying the total content of heavy metals in soils. However, such approaches are inherently limited to capturing critical insights into speciation changes and bioavailable concentrations, which are essential for accurate ecological risk assessment of heavy metals. In recent years, the diffusive gradients in thin-films (DGT) technique has emerged as an innovative and promising tool for in-situ measurement of heavy metals in soils. DGT is recognized for its stable performance with minimal disturbance to the surrounding natural environment in real-world applications. Based on Fick"s first law, the DGT technique facilitates the analysis of gradient diffusion and buffering kinetics of target pollutants, thereby providing valuable data on their speciation and bioavailability in diverse environmental settings. Furthermore, the integration of the DGT technique with the DGT-induced fluxes in soil/sediments (DIFS) model significantly enhances its applicability, enabling detailed investigations into the dynamic behaviors of heavy metals within soil matrices. This study provides a comprehensive review of the current advancements and prospects of utilizing the DGT technique for soil heavy metal risk assessments. By examining the severity and urgency of heavy metal contamination in soils, the technical advantages of DGT as a precise assessment tool are delineated, and the necessity of its application is emphasized. Through a critical analysis, the principal environmental factors influencing the ecological risks associated with soil heavy metals are identified, including soil composition, pollutant characteristics, and external environmental conditions. Additionally, this study provides an in-depth overview of the DIFS model"s role in visualizing the minute-scale dynamic behaviors of heavy metals under varying soil functional scenarios, highlighting the differences in ecological risks that may arise. In the concluding section, strategic recommendations for advancing DGT applications are outlined, focusing on improving the analytical criteria, enhancing the preparation of binding layer materials, facilitating multi-contaminant enrichment, and integrating multiple analytical techniques. These improvements are crucial for advancing the detection and quantification of heavy metals in complex environmental media. Potential directions for future research are also discussed to further expand the capabilities of DGT and DIFS in the context of soil pollution monitoring and ecological risk assessment.