Abstract: The researches on the plant population spatial pattern were mostly based on 0-D plant point (0-D IND) or 0-D plant count, and only a few was based on the 2-D projective cover (2-D PC) and 3-D aboveground biomass (3-D AGB reflected by canopy volume). Until now, the plant population spatial distribution patterns incarnated by these parameters were still unclear. Taking the widely distributed small semishrubs Seriphidium terraealbae and Artemisia songarica in Gurbantunggut Desert of Northwest China as test objects, this paper studied the IND, PC, and AGB of each individual at two sampling plots. Through sixscale division of plot coordinate system with GIS, and by using aggregation analysis, coefficient of variation (CV), and a scaling exponent between the CV and six scales, the characteristics of the population spatial distribution patterns with the above mentioned parameters were comparatively analyzed. At all scales, the IND (except for the S. terraealbae population at 0.5 m scale) and the AGB of the two shrubs all presented a clumped distribution, and the aggregation intensity increased with increasing scale. However, the PC had a uniform distribution (except for the A. songarica population at 5 and 8 m scales). With increasing scale, the CV values of the two shrubs decreased. The absolute value of scaling exponent (k value) of the IND was higher than those of the PC and AGB, and there was no significant difference in the k values between the PC and AGB, indicating that the scale variation scope of the structural complexity of the IND was larger than that of the PC and AGB. The k value of each parameter for S. terraealbae was higher than that for A. songarica, which could be related to the populations’ interspecific relationship and plant size. In sum, the IND and AGB had  similar spatial patterns, while the PC and AGB had almost  same spatial pattern complexity and scale change characteristics.