Wind erosion is the first step to land desertification,and it is obvious that accurate measurement and estimation of wind erosion rate appears urgent and essential.Owing to the complexity,randomness and boundlessness of the processes,it is difficult to measure or estimate wind erosion rate precisely at present. Current methods that include field observation,wind tunnel tests and wind erosion model have numerous limitations in their practicability,cost and accuracy.Meanwhile,the world-fallout of ¹³⁷Cs associated with the nuclear tests during 1950s and 1970s has provided a valuable man-made tracer for studies of soil erosion and sediment delivery,and since its first introduction in the 1970s,¹³⁷Cs technique has found application in water erosion research,with profound accomplishments.But it was not applied to wind erosion until the 1990s and still remains inadequate in this respect.Taking the Gonghe Basin in Qinghai Province as the study area,the paper attempts to introduce the ¹³⁷Cs method to study soil wind erosion.After field survey and analysis of a large number of soil samples,the characteristics of ¹³⁷Cs distribution over the whole study area and along the soil profile were found out,and the ¹³⁷Cs reference inventory of the area was calculated to be 2 691178±196108 Bq m^-2.By means of the ¹³⁷Cs model,the rate of wind erosion on the four sampling plots was estimated,and then the estimation method at the four points was extrapolated to the whole area.Thus the rate of wind erosion in the Gonghe Basin was figured out averaging 121556 t hm^-2 a^-1,which passed the test of erosion-deposition equilibrium at a relatively small error rate being less than 10%.