Abstract: Based on hemeroby theory, this paper used the high precision land cover data to establish a classification system of human disturbance to environment. All land cover types were classified into seven disturbance levels (no human disturbance, weak human disturbance, moderate human disturbance, moderatestrong human disturbance, strong human disturbance, severe human disturbance, and complete human disturbance). Then, Beijing was taken as a test site in this study and its land cover maps in 2007, 2015 were manually extracted from high resolution remote sensing images (spatial resolution better than 2.5 m). An areaweighted hemeroby index (HI) had been adopted for analyzing the dynamic relationship between ecological environment and human activities by using different types of reporting units, i.e. grid cell, administrative-unit, and main functional area. Our results showed that during the period from 2007 to 2015 in Beijing: (1) Area of strong human disturbance decreased by 5.14%; while others hemeroby types of area all increased. Typically, the areas of moderatestrong and complete human disturbance had increased by 1.97% and 1.44%, respectively. (2) The spatial distribution of HI in Beijing showed a diffusion pattern from the city center to its periphery and high HI areas were mostly located in the southeast part of Taihang Mountain. (3) HI index of whole Beijing decreased during this period, but with regional differences, e.g. HI index of Shijiangshan district had increased 0.14, and Daxing and Tongzhou districts had decreased 0.15 and 0.11. (4) The descending order of HI for each main functional area in Beijing was: capital core area, functional urban area, urban developing area, ecological conservation area, and forbidden development area. The HI variations in main functional areas from 2007-2015 were in accordance with the main functional area planning of Beijing.