In this paper a method is described of retrieving precipitable water from sun-photometermeasurements.The quantitative relationship between water vapor transmission and precipitablewater is established by means of LOWTRAN 7 model.Calibration of the water vapor absorptionchannel is made through a modified Langley method.The good agreement between the sun-photometer and radiosonde water vapor retrieval indicates that this method is feasible.The sun-photometer is operated at Hefei to monitor the precipitable water within one yearperiod.Characteristics of both diurnal evolution and within-one-year variation of the precipitablewater and their relation with synoptic system as well as surface dew-point temperature arepresented and analyzed.Errors in the retrieved precipitable water from the sun-photometermeasurements are also calculated and discussed.