Zoigê wetland, located on the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, is the largest area alpine wetland and headwaters of Yangtse Rive and Yellow River, and plays an important role in the water cycling. But in recent decades, Zoigê wetland degraded seriously under the influence of global change and human disturbance. The investigations were conducted at three degradation stages of swampy meadow, grassland meadow and sandy meadow to study the dynamics of soil water conservation functions during the alpine wetland degradation progress. The result showed that: (1) the soil bulk density increased significantly (P<0.01), and the capillary porosity and total porosity decreased significantly (P<0.01) during the alpine wetland degenerating from swampy meadow to grassland meadow and sandy meadow, with change of vertical distribution along soil profile, (2) significant decreases (P<0.01) were recorded in the natural water holding-capacity, capillary water-holding capacity, minimum water-holding capacity and maximum water-holding capacity during the degradation process; (3) the maximum water-holding capacity within 0-100 cm soil depth significantly reduced (P<0.01) from 8486.27 t/hm² of swampy meadow to 4944.98 t/hm² of grassland meadow and 4637.96 t/hm² of sandy meadow and (4) the soil water-holding capacities are positively correlated (P<0.01) with the soil organic material content, capillary porosity and total porosity, but negatively with soil bulk density (P<0.01), as well as influenced by plant coverage and depth of peat soil indirectly. These results indicated that the degradation of Zoigê alpine wetland can led to the decline of soil water conservation function and the decreases of plant coverage, soil organic material and peat soil depth are the basically reasons for the reduce of water conservation function.