Since Iran is located in a region with low rainfall, it is necessary to use irrigation systems with high performance. In recent years, due to low rainfall and shortage of water, the government paid especial attentions to improve irrigation systems and to use new methods of irrigation especially sprinkler irrigation systems. For sprinkler irrigation systems, usually the soil basic intake rate is used to determine the maximum sprinkler discharge rate and irrigation time. Surface runoff and irrigation efficiency are influenced by soil infiltration. In each irrigation, some water can be stored at soil surface without runoff. The soil surface storage depends on slope, crop coverage and roughness. Surface storage has important influence on runoff and infiltration. In cracking clay soils, with reduction of soil moisture, cracks are developed whitch cause problems for infiltration and irrigation performance. In this study, the effects of slope, crop coverage and soil cracks on surface storage and runoff under typical sprinkler irrigation system were studied. The experiments were conducted on a farm with classic sprinkler irrigation system at Markazy province. Two soil treatments, one ordinary soil with clay loam texture and another one a cracking soil with silty clay loam texture was used. The experiments were conducted with and without plants under three slopes of 1, 3 and 5% with three replications. The experiment was complete randomized design. The statistical software of SAS was used to analyze data. To collect runoff, a metal frame with dimension of 2m by 2m and height of 20 cm was used. The frame was placed at the center of each experimental plot (25 m by 26 m) and pushed about 10 cm into the soil. Four sprinklers were placed at outside corners of the frame. At the downstream end of the frame, a container with volume of about 0.1 m 3 was placed below the soil surface to collect runoff. The volume balance method was used to compute surface storage. The results showed that slope and crop coverage have significant effects on runoff and surface storage. The effects of soil cracks on surface runoff were not significant. The increase in slope from 1% to 5%, caused the runoff to increase from 34.7% to 43.3%. The effects of slope on surface storage was negative. For ordinary soil without crop, the increase in slope from 1% to 5%, caused the depth of surface storage to decrease from 0.97 cm to 0.58 cm. the effects of crop coverage on runoff was higher as compared to the effects of soil cracks. The crop coverage caused 10% reduction in runoff. For sprinkler irrigation systems The use of ring infiltrometer to measure soil infiltration is not recommended because ring infiltrometer showed higher infiltration.