Hydrologic Observations on precipitation, streamflow and water quality in small mountainous basins of the Alptal, Switzerland are use to show the seasonal patterns of precipitation, flow regime and nutrients outflow. Basins 3 and 10 -eventhough adjacent - are considerably different with respect to soil and vegetation conditions: Basin 3 has a large percentage in forest and relatively deep soils, basin 10 however has less than half in forest and tends to generally shallow soils. The seasonal patterns of both flow regimes and nutrients in streamflow are much more pronounced in basin 10 than 3, showing that deep soils and !arge forest cover seem to result in seasonally lower variability in flow and nutrient behaviour.