采用高精度实时动态差分GPS(以下简称RTK-GPS)技术对干热河谷冲沟进行野外调查，获取36个不同活跃度类型沟头的形态参数，研究不同活跃度类型之间沟头的形态特征差异，并分析集水区、沟床植被盖度与形态特征之间的关系。结果表明：1沟头不同活跃度类型之间，其跌坎高差、沟床比降差异最为显著，可作为沟头活跃度类型野外判别的主要参考指标；沟壁坡度、宽-深比等的差异较为显著，亦可在一定程度上表征沟头活跃程度。2沟床植被盖度与各形态特征参数的相关性显著，表明沟床植被盖度可作为形态参数的综合替代性指标。同一活跃度类型的沟头，其跌坎高差、沟床比降等与沟床植被盖度呈极显著负相关关系，说明随着沟床植被盖度的增加（或减小），跌坎高差、沟床比降均呈减小（或增加）趋势。3集水区植被盖度与各形态特征参数的关系不显著，表明干热河谷集水区植被盖度对沟头发育的贡献有限。

The Dryhot Valley of Jinsha River has lots of gullies, and it suffers serious soil erosion. To carry out the study of gully head, especially its morphological characteristics, is the premise and foundation of further study on gully erosion. In this paper, the high precision realtime kinematical GPS (RTK-GPS) was used to measure the gully morphology in Yuanmou Dryhot Valley, and the morphological parameters of 36 gully heads were obtained. Furthermore, this paper discussed the morphological characteristic differences of different type of active gully head, and analyzed the relationship between the vegetation coverage of catchments area & gully bed and morphological characteristics separately. The results showed that:(1)Among different active gully head types, both its backward step difference and gully bed slope difference are most significant, they could be regarded as the main index of distinguishing gully head activity type; the difference of furrow bank slope and the difference of widthdepth ratio are more significant, they could also attribute the gully head activity to some extent.(2)There was a strong correlation between the gully bed vegetation coverage and the morphological parameters, indicating that the gully bed vegetation coverage could serve as the alternative indicator of morphological parameters. Among gully heads that were in the same activity type, its backward step and gully bed slope had a significant negative correlation with the gully bed vegetation coverage, indicating that when the gully bed vegetation coverage increase (or decrease),the backward step and gully bed slope values showed a decrease (or increase) trend.(3)The correlation between catchments vegetation coverage and morphological parameters was not significant, indicating that catchments vegetation coverage made a limited contribution to the development of gully head.