Abstract: Catchment area is a basic，integral and relatively independent geoecological unit of hilly landscape in red soil regions. Taking three geomorphic integral catchment areas in Taoyuan County of Hunan Province as a case study，three kinds of plantation models were set including types of cropland intensive，halfintensive (cropland intensive plus about 50% noncropland intensive) and all intensive (cropland intensive plus noncropland intensive). The changing feature of soil fertility，potential，evolving tendency and developing mechanism of soil exploitation were then studied. Fixed observation over 11 years showed that three kinds of plantation models were at the approximate same inputoutput level，while the inputoutput level of noncropland had great deviation，with different evolving feature of soil fertility，biomass productivity and economic results. Soil erosion modulus in intensive management catchment areas was apparently decreased，which was equal or lower than soil loss tolerace(500 t/rm\+2). Soil organic matter and total nitrogen were steadily increased (increment scope >20%) in sloping land and cropland. Water conservation capacity could increase more than 20% in surface soil in sloping land and dryland in waterlack seasons. Productivity of crops was greatly improved (increment scope > 20%). Amount of tree，fruit，tea，fish and soil productivity were geminated. Three kinds of plantation models represented three developing steps in exploiting catchment areas. Soil development in catchment area should be along from cropland intensive to halfintensive，then to all land intensive. And developing speed was decided by the effect mechanism of essential factor, capacity of productivity of the dominant industry or items，relative interest，improvement of science and technology. More studies showed that the potential in developing catchment area was water surface > sloping land > dryland > paddy field. The potential was great with the rationality in development of hilly sloping land and water surface.

Key words: catchment area, exploitation model, hilly region of red soil