ABSTRACT: A widely used method of calculating storm runoff developed by the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) uses storm rainfal and a curve number. A curve number is a quantitative descriptor of the land cover/soil complex and is commonly assigned based on information acquired from field surveys and interpretations of aerial photographs. Since these techniques are prohibitively expensive and time consuming for large watersheds, digital data from the Landsat-1 satellite was used to estimate curve numbers for the Little River watershed near Tifton, Georgia, an area of about 125 square miles. A classification map of this area with four hydrologically important classes (agricultural vegetation, forest, wetland, and bare ground) was generated from the Landsat data. Since the soils data necessary for curve numbers were available for only about half the watershed, the missing soils data were interpolated from the vegetation patterns of the classification map. A modification of the SCS curve number table was developed and used to assign each pixel to a category. The average curve number for‘each of six subwatersheds and for the entire watershed was then computed and compared with SCS values for the same areas. Agreement was to within two curve number units.