Abstract: At present, energy dissipation ratio is a factor widely used in the study of energy dissipation characteristics of stepped spillways, but smooth spillways also have a definite rate of energy dissipation and only the difference in energy dissipation ratio between a smooth spillway and stepped spillway has practical significance. This paper describes a new parameter, the energy dissipation ratio of pure steps, and presents our experimental results on this parameter. On the hydraulic models of stepped spillway, three mean bottom slopes and different step heights were tested systematically. Analysis on the measurements indicates that under different unit discharges and different step heights, pure steps have a dissipation ratio of 5% less than that of stepped spillway and their dissipation ratio varies linearly with the length of flow path. As a result, their dissipation ratio per unit flow path under different discharges or different step heights can be regarded as a constant. The analysis also shows a change of 10.4% in the ratio when the mean spillway slope is decreased from 55° to 32°. Thus, the energy dissipation ratio of pure steps is a suitable parameter for simplification and improvement on energy dissipation study.