The aim of the present study is to explore the possibility of utilizing loess for the adsorption of total phosphorous (T-P) and total nitrogen (T-N) in water. Batch adsorption studies were performed to evaluate the influences of various factors like initial concentration, contact time and temperature on the adsorption of T-P and T-N. The adsorption data showed that loess is not effective for the adsorption of T-N. However, loess exhibited much higher adsorption capacity for T-P. At concentration of $1.0mgL^{-1}$, approximately 97% of T-P adsorption was achieved by loess. The equilibrium data were fitted well to the Langmuir isotherm model. The pseudo-second-order kinetic model appeared to be the better-fitting model because it has higher $R^2$ compared with the pseudo-first-order and intra-particle kinetic model. The theoretical adsorption equilibrium $q_{e,cal}$ from pseudo-second-order kinetic model was relatively similar to the experimental adsorption equilibrium $q_{e,exp}$. The thermodynamic parameters such as free energy ${Delta}G$, the enthalpy ${Delta}H$ and the entropy ${Delta}S$ were also calculated.