Abstract: Northeastern Chongqing is the key harnessing area of Karst rock desertification, where there is complex terrain, steep slopes and serious vegetation degradation. Knowledge of vegetation distribution pattern in this area is of great practical significance for the improvement of the environment and the control of rock desertification. By using Landsat 8 OLI remote sensing image, 30 mresolution DEM data and field survey data, we extracted the vegetation information with an objectoriented image classification method. Then, statistics, mapping and analysis on the classified data were implemented to comprehend the characteristics and law of vegetation spatial distribution pattern in this area. The results showed that:(1) after multiscale segmentation with eCognition 9 software, land cover was classified by using the membership function method based on land cover features. This approach is applicable to the land cover classification in the Karst rocky mountain areas, the classification accuracy reached 81.35%.(2) The study area is typical of the middle mountain area. The area at an altitude between 500 and 1 500 meters accounted for 64.49%. Woodland and cropland are the major land cover types in this area, which cover an area of 8 872.22 km2, accounting for 96.50% of the total area of the study area. The distribution of various land cover types is greatly influenced by the topography.(3) The results showed that cropland, grass and bush mainly distributed between the elevation of 200 and 1 500 meters, with the slope grade between level 2 and 4(i.e. 5°-35°), according to the correlation between terrain factors(i.e. elevation and slope) and vegetation distribution. There are frequent human activities, low vegetation coverage, and unstable community growth in this area, which make it vulnerable to interference. Mixed coniferbroadleaved forest is mainly distributed in the elevation higher than 500 meters, with the slope grade between level 2 and 4(i.e. 5°-35°). Masson pine forest, broadleaved forest and cupressus funebris forest are mainly distributed in the elevation higher than 500 meters, with the slope grade between level 2 and 5(i.e. 5°-45°).
Key words：multiscale segmentation; objectoriented classification; terrain factor; vegetation spatial distribution