The Hotan and Yarkand River,located in the southern edge of the Tarim Basin,are the two major tributaries of the Tarim River.Their flows are mainly recharged by snow and ice melt water.Since these sources of river flow play an important role in the state of regional water resources and ecosystems,and both snow cover area (SCA) and vegetation dynamics are important indicators of climate change in mountain areas where there is lack of adequate manual observation data forclimate change research,it is necessary to analyze the temporal and spatial variations of SCA and vegetation dynamics.In this study,we mainly used 8-day SCA data (MOD10A2) and 16-day vegetation index data (MOD13Q1) of MODIS to extract the SCA and NDVI of the studied region for a period of 14 years (March 2000 to December 2013).