© 2015 Xue Zhang et al. Cognitive wireless sensor network (CWSN) is a combination of cognitive radio and wireless sensor networks (WSNs), which can effectively solve spectrum resource scarcity problem in WSNs. As one of the key technologies in CWSNs, spectrum sensing enables sensors to detect and opportunistic access underutilized idle licensed bands, which remarkably improves the spectrum utilization and system performance. And cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) has emerged to enhance detection performance of spectrum sensing. Focusing on CSS schemes in CWSNs, this paper explores the cooperative and noncooperative schemes comprehensively. The characteristics of the existing CSS schemes are analyzed in CWSNs. And then, according to the behavior of cognitive sensors, CSS techniques are classified into noncooperative and cooperative schemes. Concentrating on energy consumption, cooperative CSS schemes are classified into three categories: censoring, clustering, and sensor selection. The performance of three kinds of CSS schemes is compared and analyzed thoroughly. Finally, the difficulties and challenges of CSS scheme are addressed in CWSNs.