【Objective】Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is an important kind of greenhouse gas, and forest soil is the main source of atmospheric N₂O, posing a great uncertainty in budgeting of atmospheric N₂O. Forest management, like fertilization, felling, litter burning, understory management and land-use change in forests would affect soil properties and soil micrometeorology, and hence production and emission of N₂O from forest soils significantly.This paper discussed responses of forest soil to different management practices in N₂O emission, explored major mechanisms of forest management affecting soil N₂O emission, and highlighted shortages of the current researches and focal points of future studies.【Method】Withreference to the databases of Scopus,Web of Science,SDOS and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), current studies on N₂Oemission from forest soil were reviewed, and findings of the researches on influences of forest management on soil N₂O emission in recent 20 years were systematically summarized, mechanisms of forest management affecting soil N₂O emission discussed, and shortages of the current studies and prospects of the researches in this field in future described.【Result】Reclamation of forests into agricultural land or grass land would increase soil N₂O emission, whereas the reverse course would did the other way around. How replacement of natural forest with artificial or secondary forest to soil N₂O emission is still unclear. The response of N₂O emission from forest soils to fertilization exhibited a nonlinear curve, consisting of no significant response at the early stage,linear increase at the middle stage, and exponential increase at the late stage, depending on degree of “N saturation” of the forest ecosystems. It was generally held that burning stimulated soil N₂O emission; felling affected soil temperature, water content, organic matter decomposition and utilization, thus enhancing soils N₂O emission capacity; and removing understory increased soil temperature, sped up decomposition and mineralization of organic carbon in the surface soil layer, thus promoting soil N₂O emission. Planting N-fixing plants also increased soil N₂O emission. 【Conclusion】Therefore,future researches should focus on the following four aspects 1) to define sources of soil N₂Oin the forests of North China and of South China by means of the ¹⁵N-¹⁸O labeling technique in combination of molecular biology,and workout non-linear curves of the responses of N₂O emission to increased N fertilizer application, through multi-dosage multi-form (ammonium nitrogen fertilizer, nitrate nitrogen fertilizer and amide nitrogen fertilizer) N fertilizer application experiments at different latitudes and under climate conditions; 2) to use molecular biological and matagenomic methods and techniques to determine effects of forest management on abundance and composition of N₂O producing bacterial communities,and quantify the coupling relationships between soil N₂O emission and major soil microbial functional groups,such as nitrifiers,denitrifiers ammonia-oxidizing bacteria, etc.; 3) to extend the observation in period and frequency of soil N₂O emissions after different forest fire chronosequence; and 4) to unfold research about response of soil N₂O emissions to select-cutting, especially in North and South China, rich in coniferous forest and rainforest, respectively.