Global warming has led to significant vegetation changes,especially in the past 20 years. The Haihe River Basin is an important agricultural and industrial region in China and under the influence of climate and human activities its ecological environment is changing. It is essential to conduct studies on spatial-temporal change in vegetation and drivers of variation based on remote sensing data. Here, we use remote sensing data for the SPOT Vegetation Normal Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI),which reflects characteristics of plant growth. Combining land cover data and climate data, we analyze the change in vegetation cover and divers across the Haihe River Basin from 1998 to 2011. We found that vegetation cover improved slightly in the basin as a whole. Across all land cover types, farmland, wetland and forest improved more than others. The distribution of improved areas was consistent with high volatility areas. The distribution of basic invariant regions was consistent with low volatility areas. Most studies suggest that vegetation change is closely correlated with climate factors. So by correlation analysis we found that it is better correlated between NDVI and precipitation than temperature in most parts of the basin, suggesting that precipitation is the main factor responsible for vegetation change. According to partial correlation and multiple correlation analyses, drivers of change show that about 31.7% of the study area was impacted by climate factor drivers, while 68.3% was driven by non-climate factors. Therefore, it is clear that vegetation change is mainly affected by human activities.