Soil erosion,as one of the major global environmental concerns,is usually the result from both natural and human factors.Sediment in lakes and reservoirs can continuously record the history of soil erosion with a high resolution in drainage basins of those water bodies,and therefore analyses of it have been becoming an important approach of investigation of occurrence and persistence of soil erosion.Furthermore,an understanding of the process and mechanism of material migration within a lake-watershed system,interactions of lake evolution with human activities and their quantitative distinction is the focus of limnology.This paper reviews the development of applications of radioactive trace isotopes,magnetic minerals,particle size,carbon,nitrogen and other chemical elements of lake/reservoir sediment in soil erosion investigations,and elucidates their further utilizations and advances.