To probe the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus (P) in sediment on aqueous nutrient concentrations, forms of phosphorus, sediment water interface diffusion fluxes and phosphorus release and adsorption of 10 lakes in the west Jiangsu province were studied. Sediments were sequentially extracted by the modified Ruttenberg's method, and the result showed that inorganic phosphorus in sediments of the lakes was the major fraction of total phosphorus, but the proportion of bioavailable phosphorus was relatively low. Compared with the lakes in northern Jiangsu, the Fe-P was relatively high in sediments of lakes in southern Jiangsu. The diffusion fluxes of lakes were mainly based on NH4(+) -N diffusion in the west Jiangsu, and ions of most of lakes diffused from overlying water to sediment, NO3(-) -N diffused from sediment to overlying water in lakes except for Lake Hongze, Lake Shijiu and Lake Xuanwu. The condition leaning to acidic (pH < 4) or alkaline (pH > 10) was beneficial to phosphorus release, and except for Lake Xuanwu, the least amount of phosphorus released form sediment was higher in acidic condition than that in alkaline condition. The amount of phosphorus adsorption was increasing with temperature increase. Considering the phosphorus adsorption on native phosphorus polluted (NAP-polluted) sediments. All data of P adsorption on sediment samples collected from 7 lakes were fitted to the modified Langmuir model. And the values of the maximum adsorption capacity (Q(m)), phosphorus binding constant (k), native adsorbed exchangeable phosphorus (Q(NAP)), were subsequently obtained. The results showed that the adsorption amount of P in Lake Hongze and Lake Xuanwu was relatively low, which were liable to release P from sediments.