Abstract: Water-driven soil erosion is one of the most important factors contributing to soil degradation, which affects global carbon (C) cycle by redistributing soil organic carbon (SOC) over the landscape and changing SOC mineralization rate at both eroded and depositional positions.This paper aims to summarize the current researches in the world and evaluate the effect of water-driven erosion on SOC dynamics and global C balance.Water-driven erosion moves sediment and SOC down slope and promotes C mineralization rate at eroded slope positions; SOC laden sediment deposited in depositional areas is continually buried by additional sediment protecting it from mineralization.The change in SOC in a landscape over a period is generally considered to be the amount of SOC lost by erosion, without taking SOC deposition into consideration.As a result, the amount of SOC lost by erosion may be over-estimated.Soil erosion is considered to be related with the lost C sink in global C cycle.However, it is difficult to make a clear statement on effect of water-driven erosion on SOC dynamics as there are many factors affecting SOC dynamics and it is difficult to measure long term SOC redistribution by erosion in field.