The Hetian basinal area in County Changting of Fujian province is one of the most typical soil loss areas in the reddish soil regions of southern China. Local people and governments have been struggling for the control of the soil loss for decades. This study used remote sensing technology to analyze spatiotemporal dynamics of the bare soil cover in the Hetian basinal area since 1976. The bare soil features were extracted from the Landsat images of 1976, 1988, 1999, 2004 and 2010 using two thematic indices-normalized difference soil index (NDSI) and normalized difference impervious surface index (NDISI). After converting the original digital number values of the images to at-satellite reflectance, the soil and impervious surface features were enhanced using the two indices, respectively. The soil features were then extracted from the soil-enhanced images. However, the extracted soil information was found to have been mixed with built-up land information due to the spectral confusion between the two categories. Therefore, the NDISI was further used to filter out the unwanted built-up land information from the soil images using a logical tree algorithm, as the NDISI is the index specially designed for highlight impervious surface features represented mainly by built-up lands. Results showed that the nearly thirty-five years of fight for controlling soil loss have greatly reduced bare soil covers in the basinal area. The area of the bare soil cover has been greatly reduced from 159.17 km² in 1976 to 51.98 km² in 2010. In the three observed periods, 1976-1988, 1988-1999, and 1999-2010, the decrease in bare soil cover was in an accelerate speed, which was -2.45 km² per year, -2.75 km² per year, and -4.33 km² per year for the three periods, respectively. This corresponds to the major policies issued by the government for the soil loss treatment of the area. Government policies accompanied with effective actions have played a key role in the reducing of the bare soil cover in the Hetian basinal area.