Soil erosion of soil dump during highway construction is one of the most important parts of road erosion,and the terrain features of the dump determines its erosion characteristics.The evaluation and prediction of the dump shape is therefore the prerequisite for precise soil erosion estimation of the soil dumps.An approach was established to estimate the shapes of soil dumps according to the characteristics of highway excavation and soil piling,and it was then tested with the data obtained on Changde—Zhangjiajie Highway.At last,the regional differences of dump shapes were compared between southwest mountainous areas and southeast of China.The results show that the method well predicted the height of waste dumps,with a mean relative error of 37.67% and correlation coefficient of 0.94.The waste soil production during highway construction in the mountainous areas was 1.5 times more than that in the hilly regions.The waste dumps of the mountainous areas were mainly located in gullies and valleys,with relatively larger volumes and occupancy areas and lower heights.