Abstract: Planting living hedges is a recommendable way for soil and water conservation in slopeland.Species selection and horizontal design are two most important technologies for this metod.The criteria of species selection for living hedge provided by this paper covers four aspects:ecological adaptability,ecological benefit,economic benefit and harmful effects on crops.Each aspect includes several criteria in morphology and productivity.For the horizontal design,proper distance between two living hedge rows,proper distance between two living hedge plants and some typical kinds of structures of living hedge row were discussed in this paper.And theoretical formulas of distance between hedge rows and between hedge plants are also deduced.