Typical soils (i.e., red soil, yellow soil, brown soil and dark brown soil) under different elevations and typical land use types (cultivated land and forestland) were selected to investigate the variations in the vertical zonality of soil erodibility in dry-warm valley of China. AV-shape simulation flume was used to estimate rill erodibility in the erosion process. A series of rill erosion-based scour experiments were conducted, using water discharge of 150, 300, 450, 600, 750, 900 mL/min and hydrological conditions of drainage, saturation and seepage conditions. Results showed that the composition of soil particle composition had no obvious vertical zonality. The content of sand in forestland soil was relatively high, and the difference of particle composition in each soil was within 9%. All soils were silt loam. However, an obvious difference in soil organic matter appeared among different vertical zones. A vertical zonality of the rill erodibility (K_r value) could be find. As the elevation increased, K_r value of forestland soil decreased, and K_r value of dark brown soil was 47.74% less than that of red soil for forestland. For cultivated land, K_r value of yellow soil was slightly larger than that of the red soil, which could be ascribe to different human activities and soil maturity. Soil K_r of forestland was significantly higher than that of cultivated land with an average increase of 22.63%, which might be relate to the improved anti-erosion ability by soil organic matter. Soil erodibility was highest under seepage condition among different hydrological conditions, and soil erodibilitywas higher under saturation condition than that under drainage treatment. This result indicated that the difference of hydraulic gradients would also affect soil erodibility. Meanwhile, the critical shear stress was also highest under seepage condition among different hydrological conditions, and the critical shear stress was higher under saturation condition than that under drainage treatment. No obvious variation trend appeared among different vertical zonalities and land use types.