Climate change, topographical evolution and human activities are the main driving factors of NDVI spatiotemporal evolution. Quantitative identification of the driving mechanism can provide support for water conservation, artificial forest construction and soil erosion control. Taking Huangshui River Basin as an example, accumulated temperature, accumulated precipitation and NDVI of 16-days from 2000 to 2018 were collected and manipulated based on slope trend analysis, correlation analysis and other methods to identify the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of NDVI in this study. The impact mechanisms of climate factors, topography and land use on spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of NDVI were quantitatively analyzed as well. The results show that: (1) the annual average growth rate of NDVI in Huangshui River Basin from 2000 to 2018 is 0.28%/a. NDVI in spring, summer and autumn also showed an increasing trend. The increasing area accounts for 38.04% of the whole basin, which was mainly distributed in the middle and lower reaches and northwest of Huangshui River Basin. (2) NDVI was positively correlated with accumulated temperature, accumulated precipitation and effective accumulated precipitation of 16 days, and the areas with (extreme) significant positive correlation accounted for 77.89%, 86.52% and 86.18% of the whole basin respectively. However, the correlation between NDVI and 16-days accumulated temperature increased first and then decreased from southeast to northwest in Huangshui River Basin. While the correlation between NDVI and accumulated precipitation (or effective accumulated precipitation) gradually increased from southeast to northwest. (3) NDVI is affected not only by altitude and aspect, but also by surface conditions and human factors. The areas with high NDVI are mainly distributed above 2700m above sea level. Compared with other slope aspect, NDVI on the semi-shady slope is higher, the growth rates of NDVI on semi-sunny slope and shady slope are the fastest, and the growth rate on sunny slope is the slowest. The growth of NDVI on shady slope in spring and autumn is the fastest, that on semi-sunny slope in summer is the fastest, and that on sunny slope in autumn, spring and summer is the slowest. (4) The annual average growth rate of NDVI in arable land, woodland, grassland, water area and unused land are 0.36%, 0.27%, 0.28%, 0.24% and 0.17% respectively. The annual average decrease rate of NDVI in urban land use is 0.13%. Large area increase of plantation forest is an important factor for increase of NDVI.