Tremendous developments on slope lands usually leads to the reduction of vegetation covering. As the surface rounghness decreases, it causes the increases of surface runoff and peak gravel flow. which may threaten human lifes and property downstream. In order to control the flood, in many areas the solution can be the construction of a detention dam, which may effectively alleviate the occurrence of peak discharge and reduce the amount of soil and sand carried by the flow. In order to' analyze the characteristic of detention structures, experiments in associated with computer-controlled unsteady flow have been conducted. Results are used to verify the analytical solutions of the non-dimensional detention theory proposed in this paper. It is intented to present some useful informations for the design of detention structures in the development of slopelands.