The control and protection of urban riparian wetlands have great significance for urban ecological environment, and monitoring vegetation coverage is an important way to study wetland vegetation conditions. By taking the Yellow River wetlands in Zhengzhou City as the study area, the equal density model was used to inverse wetland vegetation coverage based on the TM remote sensing images of the Yellow River wetland between 1999 and 2011. Combined with precipitation data and field survey, vegetation coverage changes in the wetland were analyzed. The ecological environment in the wetland was fragile; the average vegetation coverage decreased from 60% to 40% during the study period; and typical vegetation of the Yellow River wetland has been destroyed. Differences in precipitation obviously impacted vegetation coverage, while more and more human activities were an important factor leading to continuous reduction of vegetation. Result from the study may serve for regional ecological restoration planning and enhance the ecological and economic values of the Yellow River wetland.