Abstract: Vegetation coverage is an important indicator to measure the growth status of regional vegetation and describe the quality of the ecological environment. Based on MODIS MOD13A3 remote sensing data and meteorological data, this paper uses trend analysis to analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics of vegetation coverage in the growth season in the upper Yangtze River basin, and further uses partial correlation analysis the residual analysis method reveals the response mechanism of vegetation coverage changes to climate and human activities. The results show that: (1) The vegetation coverage in the growing season of the upper Yangtze River basin from 2000 to 2019 showed a significant upward trend (P<0.05), the growth rate was 1.3×10-3/a, and the multi-year average vegetation coverage was 0.64, showing an eastward trend. The northwestern part is gradually decreasing; (2) The spatial distribution of vegetation coverage has significant heterogeneity, with 61.5% of the area showing an improvement trend, mainly for cultivated plants distributed in the Jialing River Basin and Wujiang River Basin, and the degraded area accounts for 38.5%, mainly distributed in Coniferous forests, meadows and shrubs in the Jinsha River Basin and the upper reaches of the Minjiang River; (3) The vegetation coverage is bounded by an altitude of 3.5 km, which rises first and then declines. The altitude is lower than 3.5 km, and the vegetation coverage varies with altitude the change gradient is small, the altitude is higher than 3.5 km, and the vegetation coverage varies greatly with altitude; (4) The area of pixels whose main influencing factor of vegetation coverage is precipitation accounts for 57.5%, and the distribution is mostly concentrated in the Jialing River Basin and Wujiang River Basin, with temperature as the main influencing factor, the distribution is relatively scattered; (5) From 2000 to 2019, the influence of human activities in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River on the change of vegetation coverage was higher in areas with positive values than in areas with negative values, indicating that human activities promoted the growth of vegetation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.