Abstract:Accurate determination of water-stable aggregates is of great significance for soil fertility,soilquality and soil erosion.Followed the three popular pre-wetting methods(no vacuum fast pre-wetting,novacuum fast dripping pre-wetting and no vacuum slow vapor pre-wetting),the contents of water-stable aggregates of 5soil types(black soil,cinnamon soil,loess soil,purple soil and red soil)were measured.Basedon paired-sample t tests,the results showed that the measured contents were fairly stable with the samemethod but varied substantially with different methods.The method of no vacuum fast pre-wetting generatedthe lowest values,no vacuum fast dripping pre-wetting the moderate,and no vacuum slow vapor pre-wettingthe highest,which might be suitable respectively for the conditions of heavy rain storms,moderate rain andgentle rain.