Zoige Plateau (av. 3400 m a.s.l.), located in the eastern edge of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (av. 4000 m a.s.l.), is a complete and orbicular plateau surrounded by a series of alpine mountains (av. 4000 m a.s.l.), covering an area of 2.8×104 km2. Due to the unique alpine climate of the plateau, characterized by cold-long winters alternating with cool-short summers with relatively high precipitation, these alpine wetlands undergo a continuous methane emission through the frozen soil, and then an impulse of methane emission during and immediately following the soil thawing. It was found that methane emission was well coupled with the growing rhythm of plants. However, the magnitude, temporal, and spatial patterns of methane fluxes in alpine wetlands on Zoige Plateau are still highly uncertain. To refine the actual global methane budget of alpine wetlands, methane fluxes were measured among three wetland landscapes at the Zoige National Wetland Reserve. Based on such measurements, it was roughly estimated that mean methane flux from Zoige Plateau was 4.69 mg CH4 m-2 h-1 in the growing season. A special diurnal variation pattern of methane emission was observed that there was two emission peaks: one minor peak occurred at 06:00 and the major one at 15:00. In this study, soil temperature of 5cm depth was considered as the key factor to explain the higher peak at 15:00. After clipping, the methane flux from the Eleocharis valleculosa and Carex muliensis sites were dropped substantially by 47.1% and 63.2%, respectively. The stomata whose opening and closure were under the control of light (PAR) should be major vents for methane efflux. Therefore, one hour after sunrise, the stomata opened substantially and methane efflux reached a small climax at 06:00 because a lot of methane accumulated at night.There were clearly seasonal patterns of methane flux in different environmental types during the growing and non-growing seasons. In the growing season, the main maximum values of methane flux were found in July and August, except for a peak value in September in CM sites. In the non-growing season, the similar seasonal variation pattern was shared among all of three sites, in which the methane emissions increased from February to April. It was found that the determining factors in the growing season were ground surface temperatures, standing water depths and plant community heights; while in the non-growing season, ice thickness was found most related to flux. Different environmental types within the wetland also influenced the seasonal pattern of methane flux. There were high spatial variations among environmental types and for all spots in the two phenological seasons. In the peak growing season, coefficients of variation were on the average 38% among environmental types and 57% within environmental types; in the quickly thawing season, coefficients of variation were on the average 61% among environmental types and 77% within environmental types. The key influencing factors were standing water depths and plant community height in the peak growing season, while in the quickly thawing season, the redox potentials were best related with the methane emissions due to the complex of the water phases (r2=0.72, P<0.05).Landscape types had significant impacts on methane fluxes. Standing water depth was the major factor to explain the landscape variation of methane flux, while vegetation characteristics were also valuable to predict methane flux from Zoige Plateau.