It is important to accurately evaluate soil carbon processes and their environmental impact mechanism that partition soil respiration components and discover the response of different components to environmental factors. According to the differences of substrate source and mechanism, soil respiration mainly includes root respiration, rhizosphere microbial respiration, litter decomposition, soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition under the natural conditions and excitation effect. The methods for partitioning soil respiration components can be divided into three kinds, differential partitioning method based on plant-derived CO₂ measurement or SOM-derived CO₂ measurement and the method for partitioning soil respiration components based on the difference of isotopic signals among soil respiration components. The study of partitioning soil respiration components can solve importantly scientific questions, such as the response mechanism of different soil respiration components to the environmental change, the interaction between plant photosynthetic carbon input and soil respiration components, and the influence mechanism of changes in soil respiration components on soil carbon turnover. However, they are still needed to be paid more attention and systematically studied, e.g., the theoretical basis, observation methods and potential error for partitioning soil respiration components.