There are many heavily sediment-ladden rivers in China, with high sediment concentration and a large quantity of sediment load. The reservoir sedimentation problems in those rivers are so serious that the amount of sediment deposited in the reservoir is great and the rate of sedimentation is accelerated. According to the statistics, up to the end of 1981? a total amount of 11.5×10¹⁰ m³ of sediments were approximately accumulated in the reservoirs, and 14.2% of the design capacity was lost. The average annual loss in capacity for storage reservoirs reaches 2.3 percent, the highest in the world. Silting of impounding lakes not only has an effect on the benefits of the reservoirs and seriously threatens the life of reservoirs, but also entails many environmental problems not fully anticipated at the time of planning of the reservoir, which calls for the Chinese scientific-technical personnol to pay high attention to and make great efforts in research on the methods of minimizing sediment deposition. In this paper, the situalion of rcservior deposition in China will be described. The main content is as follows:1) the characteristics of hydrology and sediment of rivers; 2) the seriousness of reservoir sedimentation in China; 3) problems caused by reservoir deposition; 4) the methods of minimizing sediment deposition etc.