Soil moisture is the dominant limiting factor of desert-wetland ecosystems in the inland.Based on the traditional and geographical statistics methods,we measured soil moisture ranged from 0 to 200 cm depth to find the rules of their spatial distribution characteristics,and surveyed some associated environmental factors such as altitude,soil texture and related vegetation indices in desert-wetland ecosystem at Xihu district,Dunhuang National Nature Reserve of Gansu Province,which may be helpful to vegetation restoration,protection and sustainable management in wetland ecosystem at extreme arid areas.The main results were as follows:(1)the coefficients of variation,Nugget variance,sill,range and spatial dependence were ranged from 36.51% to 88.65%,0.007 to 0.098,0.112 to 0.549,116 to 453 and 76.6% to 97.6%,respectively,and all their variables were at a medium variation level and a high heterogeneity and strong spatial autocorrelation was appeared.(2)The variability of soil moisture in the deep soil profile at 60 to 200 cm was higher than those in the shallow layer at 0 to 60 cm,which kept much more differences at different layers,especially in some small scales.(3)The altitude was a dominant factor that influenced the variation of deep soil moisture trend.(4)The relationships between soil texture and soil moisture in deep soil at 60 to 200 cm were stronger than those of shallow layers at 0 to 60 cm,otherwise,which did not comply with the factor of altitude;there were a great positive correlation between the herbage coverage and the soil moisture in shallow soil layers,but a negative correlation between the root biomass of shrub and the soil moisture in deep soil layers.