Abstract: Wind erosion is one of the important factors of the impact of soil slope stability in arid regions.Particularly,the effect of differential wind erosion is the most obvious to the soil slopes made up with different soils that have various abilities to resist wind erosion.However,it is very limited to study its influencing factors and mechanism.Therefore,a typical example is the deformation and damage of the multivariate layered steep soil slope by wind erosion in Jiaohe ancient city mesa in Turpan which is located in the arid and windy region in China.The concept of different wind erosion effects in the multi-element layered soil slope is put forward on the basis of the deformation and damage phenomenon of wind erosion,some methods such as field survey,sampling,grain size analysis and experiment,micro-structural analysis and wind tunnel test in the laboratory are applied to reveal the main control factors of the differences in wind erosion effects for soil slope,for example,the type of wind,the sediment-carrying wind speed,soil grain composition,and micro-structure.Moreover,the further analysis based on engineering geology and theories of classical mechanics is made,the deformation and damage evolutionary mechanism of the slopes by different wind erosion effects are put formard,and some useful references for controlling and monitoring the deformation and damage of those slopes are provided.