Barrier Lakes, if out of control, will pose a great threat to the downstream. Due to the sudden occurrence, the time available for emergency disposal is extremely limited, so it is urgent to take effective emergency disposal, of which the selection of key engineering measures is particularly important. By summarizing the experiences from the emergency disposal of many barrier lakes at home and abroad, we carried out a comparative analysis of key engineering measures using physically-based DB-IWHR breach and typical parametric breach methods based on the case study of Baige Barrier Lake. The results show that physically-based breach method can quantitatively and quickly determine the key engineering measure for the barrier lakes, which is the excavation of overflow channels. The overflow channel excavated in the crest of “11.03” Baige Barrier Lake in 2018 is 220 m long, 15 m deep and 42 m wide at the top, 3 m wide at the bottom. Excavating the overflow channel decreases the storage capacity of the lake from 39 277.35 m3/s to 31 000 m3/s and the breach volume of peak flood from 8.08×108 m3 to 5.79×108 m3, respectively. The DB-IWHR physically-based breach model is efficient and applicable, with this model the scheme demonstration can be done within 1 hour. It is suitable for the the emergency disposal of barrier lakes. By comparing with the three typical parametric breach methods, it is shown that the physically-based breach method has better performance and more detailed results, which can provide scientific support for the selection of emergency disposal for key engineering measures.