Rivers are increasingly investigated from a landscape perspective. Recognition and understanding of landscape dynamics as a historical legacy of disturbances are necessary for sustainable management of stream ecosystems. This study analyzed temporal changes in land use and cover patterns in a riparian buffer area in Dongjiang River. To analyze the riverine landscape pattern, we created a buffer zone along the stream of the Dongjiang River with width of 10 km. Based on Thematic Mapper remote sensing data of 1998 and 2006, we identified 6 land use and land cover types using supervised classification techniques, a selected group of landscape metrics at the class and landscape level was used to quantify the changing pattern of land use and land cover in the study region. All of the analyses were performed using a geographic information system and the landscape pattern analysis software Fragstats. The quantitative evidences showed that there was a net increase of 8.57％ in total water patch areas as an overall change between 1998 and 2006. The fragmentation of the water decreased as indicated by the larger areas and smaller numbers of patches. Analysis of the metrics revealed that water structure in study area had changed better over the past 8 years in terms of spatial configuration. The coverage of forest becomes larger indicated by the increases of woodland areas. The revegetations of the riparian would be helpful to the soil and water conservation. The proportion of agricultural land patch decreased by 35.72％, which would be responsible for the mitigation of water quality deterioration. The fragmentation of riparian decreased in landscape level, and the structural connectivity improved. The changes of woodland, farmland and the connectivity would place positive effects to the restoration of stream. The increasing urbanization indicated by a series of indices changes such as the increases of PLAND and LSI and so on, which would bring new challenges to water quality. Dramatic changes of the landscapes, which due to the spread of urban land use around the riparian, may hold a negative influence over the restoration of stream. On all accounts, the restoration of Dongjiang River riparian gained effects to some extent，but some aspects should be enhanced. The optimization of vegetation is especially emphasized, and the spatial allocation of vegetation and plant species composition should be improved. The ecological particularity of riparian should be considered in the urban planning. Where water restoration is the goal, integrative measures at the landscape scale are supposed to be adopted. It is suggested that the distributing configuration of landscape pattern was ought to be optimized, and reinforcing the integration of multiple factors, so as to draw appropriate lessons for water ecosystem management.