Small tailing ponds take up 80 percent of China's tailing ponds and have caused severe influence on the environment. Using WorldView-2 high resolution image as data source, the authors extracted the tailing ponds in Chengui town with visual interpretation method. There were 74 small tailing ponds, occupying 58.95 hm². With the nearest distance method, the authors drew a conclusion that the degree of the four ground features affected by pond hazard was in order of road > water > farmland > residential area. Then the DEM of Daye City was selected to simulate the river system and contour profile information, and extracted the data of the hierarchical river stream and catchment watershed. With the watershed as a unit, the area of the environment impacted by the small tailing ponds was marked off, and the acreage area reached 59.96 km². Combining the watershed analysis data with the distribution characteristics and law of the small tailing ponds, the authors further analyzed the effect of the small tailing ponds on the environment, thus providing valuable references for the relevant departments to reinforce environmental supervision and ecology management of the small tailing ponds. It is shown that the remote sensing technology will play an important role in the analysis of distribution characteristics and environmental effect of the small tailing ponds.