Rocky desertification in karst areas has a serious impact on the sustainable development of local social economy. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the spatial and temporal characteristics and evolution rules of rocky desertification in karst areas. In this paper, eight provinces in southwest China are taken as research area. Based on Normalized Difference Vegetation (NDVI), Net Primary Productivity (NPP), Surface Albedo and Slope data, and with the help of ArcGIS and other software platforms, the variations of rocky desertification in different slope, land use and ecological protection zones are analyzed. The results showed that: (1) Mild and moderate rocky desertification are main types of rocky desertification in the Southwest.From the spatial perspective, the distribution area of rocky desertification is the widest in Guizhou, followed by Yunnan and Guangxi. (2) From the perspective of different land uses, the area with no rocky desertification from 2000 to 2015 was the largest, followed by potential rocky desertification. Rocky desertification mainly occured in the cultivated land and forest land types,the area of rocky desertification on other lands was the least, but the proportion of extremely severe rocky desertification on other lands was very large with about 11% on average. (3) From the perspective of different slopes,the severity of rocky desertification does not increase with the increase of slope, rocky desertification occurred in the maximum area between slope 6° and 25°. (4) From the perspective of ecological protection areas, karst ecological protection areas in southwest China in 2000 and 2015 were the most widely distributed areas of rocky desertification, covering 27481.86 km² and 21738.65 km² respectively. In terms of variation, the Three Gorges Reservoir area increased the most by 1641.22 km², while the southwest karst ecological function reserve decreased the most by 5743.22 km². (5) Rocky desertification can be accurately inverted by using NPP, NDVI, surface albedo and slope, with the inversion weights of 0.33, 0.42, 0.15 and 0.1 respectively. During the study period, the ecological environment in southwest China was gradually improved.