Abstract: The research development of soil water,water harvesting afforestation,soil water dynamics and the rules of soil water movement in artificial plantation is summarized.It is pointed out that soil drying up phenomenon has been common to artificial plantations in arid,semi-arid and semi-moist areas since 1980's,and water harvesting afforestation has been proven an efficient way to increase water content in the soil.The research on soil water dynamics of artificial plantation has been stressed on seasonal and vertical dynamics in the past,and some progress has been made in quantitative study on soil water movement.Current study is being focused on determination of parameters reflecting soil water movement under both saturated and unsaturated status.While the major research contents in the future will be oriented to frame evaluation indexes for soil dehydration,determine soil water capacity and design right plantation density and tree species structure under some special conditions.