A preliminary study on sediment yields of small catchments is conducted by using pond and reservoir deposits in the Liuxi river basin of Nanchong City,in the Hilly Sichuan Basin.The average specific sediment yield of small catchments over the basin is 762t/(km²a),and the tendency of sediment yield increase with the catchment area increase is not apparent.However,the sediment delivery ratio in the basin should be much higher than the previously reported values of 0.10～0.27,and the soil erosion rate should be much less than the values of 3000～5000t/(km²·a) reported by the second state survey using the remote sensing method.