Soil unsaturated hydraulic properties were not available,which restricted the technology of unsaturated hydraulic simulation to be applied to the field.In this research two representative methods of estimating soil hydraulic properties based on soil water retention curve and simple infiltration were employed,and unsaturated hydraulic properties were estimated and compared by these two methods for different textural purple soils.The results showed that the unsaturated conductivities estimated by soil water retention curve and simple infiltration were in good agreement with calculated unsaturated conductivities.Because of the advantage of measuring easily for soil water retention curve and the characters of simple experiment and time-saving for the simple infiltration,these two methods being employed to estimating purple soil unsaturated hydraulic properties were feasible.