The remote sensing and GIS are applied to evaluate the soil water erosion risk in the northern part of Shaanxi Province, China. This research integrates the revised universal soil loss equation(RUSLE) with RS and GIS techniques to quantify erosion risk. A system is established for rating soil erodibility, slope length/gradient, rainfall erosivity and conservation practices. The rating values serve as inputs into a modified universal soil loss (equation)(USLE) to calculate the risk for soil degradation processes, namely soil water erosion. Two Landsat TM senses from 1987 and 1999 for each location in Yulin and Jinbian County were utilized to produce land use/cover maps of the study area based on the maximum likelihood classification method. These maps were then, used to generate the conservation practice factor in the RUSLE. ER mapper and Arc/Info software's were used to manage and manipulate thematic data, to process satellite images, and to tabulate data. Statistical analysis determined that 3985.9km²(33.12%) of land has slight to moderate soil degradation, 1583.5km²(13.16%) has moderately high soil degradation, 2941.4km²(24.44%) has high soil degradation and 3522.1km²(29.27%) of the total land is at risk of a very high soil degradation. The study area, in general, is exposed to a high risk of soil water erosion.