In the cold regions of western China,underlying surfaces are mainly (87. 7%) composed of grassland, meadow and desert. However,the hydrological functions of these landtypes are unclear and lacking in adequate measured data. Based on the 4-year (2009-2012) observation work at point scale,small watershed scale and simulation results from Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer (SVAT) system,it concludes that the alpine desert should be the primary runoff production area,which takes part 12% of high-cold region. While the alpine grassland and meadow (taking about 64%) contribute to the watershed runoff a little,its ecological function is more evident than its hydrological function. Combined with other research results in the literature,runoff coefficient for different landsacpes can be sorted as: glacier > cold desert > swamp meadow > hill slope shrub > meadow > alpine grassland> forest. If the vegetation belt moves upward under the global warming,the runoff coefficient will decrease in the alpine watershed of China.