Land use plays a pivotal role in the soil erosion process in small watersheds. The focus of most studies was on the soil erosion or soil nutrient distribution. However, there was limited information about the relationship between them. Nonetheless, it is important in understanding the environmental effects, and of great significance for regionally ecological protection and high-quality development. Given that the research in this area was lacking, this study quantitatively evaluated the characteristics of soil erosion and nutrient loss characteristics and their relationship. The Qiugou Watershed was selected as the study area, which is located in Yan'an city of northern Shaanxi Province in China, the ¹³⁷Cs tracer technique was selected as the research technique. The results could be drawn as follows:(1) land use patterns significantly affected soil erosion in the small watershed. The soil erosion modulus ranged from -18.67 t km^-2 a^-1to 151.27 t km^-2 a^-1. The degree of soil erosion under all land use patterns was slight. The value from high to low was gully, apple orchard, woodland, grassland, and shrub. The soil erosion was observed in the all study sites with one exception where deposits occurred in the shrub land. (2) The spatial variation of soil erosion modulus under different land use was obvious, and the variation of other land uses was moderate except slight for gully. There were significant differences in erosion modulus between forest and apple orchard, shrub and gully, and between shrub, apple orchard and gully, but there was no significant difference between forest and grassland. (3) The trend of soil total nitrogen content, organic matter content, N/P and C/P were consistent under different land use patterns, and the order was shrub, grassland, woodland, gully, and apple orchard. However, the total phosphorus content showed different change characteristics. The value from high to low was shrub, apple orchard, gully, grassland, and woodland. Soil total phosphorus content was highly significant with soil total nitrogen content and organic matter content. Compared with the national average, soil total nitrogen content was lower, and soil total phosphorus content was moderate. C/N was higher than the national average, while N/P and C/P were much lower than the national average, indicating that soil nitrogen was the severely restricted factor in present small watershed. (4) Soil erosion was an important cause of nutrient loss in this small watershed. The soil nutrient loss, soil nutrient status and soil erosion degree, by and large, following a close relation. Chang of soil nutrient loss in different land uses was consistent with the performance of soil erosion modulus, and there was highly signicantly positive correlation between them. However, it was negatively correlated with soil total nitrogen, total phosphorus, organic matter, N/P ratio and C/P ratio, but not with C/N ratio. This study provided data support for the high-quality development of the Loess Plateau and the prevention and control of regional soil erosion in the new period.