Abstract: We attempted to address:①the mean soil respiration of tropical rainforest;② the effect of land-use change on soil respiration in trpical land;③ how temperature and water controls over soil respiration in tropical forests.Field studies in the past half century on soil respiration of tropical forests was compiled and synthesized.Soil respiration of tropical rainforest is (1368±323)g·m-2·a-1.There is a significant positive correlation between mean annual temperature and soil respiration which indicates the increase of temperature by 1℃ will enhance soil respiration by 5%.No statistic correlation was found between soil respiration and mean annual rainfall.Studies with introducing of automatic chambers will favor in deep plough the temperature-respiration relationship in tropical forests,since temperature range is very low there.Soil respiration is higher during the rainy season in most of the studies.Usually,soil respiration increased with soil water content and saturated at certain level.After that,the increase of soil water will exert negative effect of respiration.The ecosystem-level water manipulation experiment was suggested to be an ideal approach for the investigation water effect on soil respiration in tropical forests.Especially,it is nearly at its initial stage.