Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) have significantly increased since pre-industrial times owing to anthropogenic perturbation of the global nitrogen cycle. However,studies dealing with N₂O fluxes from different land-use types on hilly-gully loess plateau are still scarce. Different land use types (i.e. forest, grassland, arable land) may lead to different soil N₂O emissions. These soil emissions may be of significant importance for the composition of the atmosphere and it is of great importance to study the soil-atmospheric exchange of N₂O in these ecosystems to get reliable estimates of the soil greenhouse gas budgets in semiarid areas under different land-use types. We aimed to estimate the potential of soil net N₂O fluxes and the controlling factors for N₂O production. A laboratory incubation experiment was conducted to determine the effect of soil temperature and soil moisture on N₂O flux in forest, orchard and grassland on hilly-gully loess plateau. Forest (109°10'E, 35°05'N), orchard (107°41'E, 35°14'N) and grassland (106°27'E, 36°17'N) sites were selected. The main characteristics of the soil at the depth of 0-5 cm are as follows: Soil organic matter was in the range of 12.4 to 44.8 g/kg, total nitrogen was between 1.05 to 2.27 g/kg, bulk density between 1.168 to 0.803 g/cm³ and pH value was between 8.88 to 9.04 in the three sites. At each site, twenty-four intact soil samples were collected in early spring 2010. Each sampling site was divided into six plots to obtain representative soil samples. Four intact soil cylinders per plot were collected from the uppermost mineral soil (0-5 cm from the top) using a PVC-cylinder (diameter: 7 cm, height: 5 cm). Undisturbed soil cores from each landuse type were incubated under 5 different moisture conditions: water content at wilting point (WW), natural water (NW), fracture capillary water (FCW), field water (FW) and saturated water (SW) content, which was in the range of 10.7 to 83.2%WFPS. Each water content was measured at 4 different soil temperature states (5, 15, 25 and 35°C) in the laboratory. Nitrous oxide fluxes of undisturbed soil cores were measured with the closed chamber technique and analysed by gas chromatography. Inorganic nitrogen, organic nitrogen and microbial nitrogen of soil samples were measured additionally. Our results showed that: soil N₂O emission rates were positively correlated to soil temperature (r=0.1599, P<0.05). Maximum N₂O production was measured at 35℃. Soil N₂O emissions was positively correlation with soil moisture content(r=0.2499, P<0.0001) until soil reached field capacity (FW). N₂O fluxes reached the maximum when soil moisture was close to FW, but N₂O fluxes declined sharply above FW. The soil N₂O emissions could be described by a polynomial equation: F=a+b×T+c×T²+d×T³+e×T⁴+f×W, where F is the N₂O flux, T is soil temperature, W is soil moisture (WFPS%) and "a-f" are the regression parameters. N₂O production was highest in Orchard soil > forest land > grassland soil. In orchard soil 14% and 30% more N₂O was produced compared to forest and grassland soil. Soil nitrogen also influenced the soil N₂O flux, but there was no clear pattern.