Vegetation coverage change is not only an important indicator to reflect the growth of terrestrial vegetation,but also it is the essential fundamental data for ecological system study. It partly indicates the dynamic changes of the regional ecological environment and plays an important role in global change research. Using Landsat image as main data, combined with geographic information data, administrative zone boundary, thematic information provided by the relevant departments,and then using normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to calculate and graded the vegetation cover of study area. Finally, the spatio-temporal change of vegetation cover is obtained by transfer matrix in Fuxian Lake watershed for nearly 40 years. The results show that: (1) The area change of grade I is a little,while the grade II ~ IV is not stable and have several times valley and peak value, but the grade V is linear increasing in nearly 40 years in Fuxian Lake watershed; (2) The slope,derived by DEM(2 meters interval),was classified as follows: 0°~8°,8° ~ 15°, 15~25°,25° ~35°,35°~90°. Based on accounting the each year and each grade vegetation coverage ratio, it can reveal that the low vegetation coverage mainly distribute in relatively flat ground (0°~ 15°),while high vegetation coverage is almostly in steep ground; (3) The largest area is the grade I in each year, and the area of the grade II and III are more than IV and V in 1974,1977, 1989 and 1996. While the area of the change subtly in each grade exclude grade I from 2000,and the area of vegetation coverage at levels IV and V is greater than II and III in 2006,2009,2012 and 2014.