The invention discloses a method for evaluating the quality of an image shot by an unmanned aerial vehicle, which is characterized in that for an image shot by the unmanned aerial vehicle in patrol inspection, the quality of the image is analyzed from the whole image and local details; for blurring generated by focusing misalignment caused by motions or shakes of the unmanned aerial vehicle, a frequency domain sharpness index and the distribution density and orientation features of edge segments in a space domain are firstly fused so as to judge whether an image captured by the unmanned aerial vehicle image is blur or not on the whole; under the condition that the image quality is acceptable on the whole, salient edge regions in the image are further searched, and the local detail blur degree of image edges is judged through analyzing the average width of difference salient edges. The method is applied to images shot by the unmanned aerial vehicle under outdoor conditions, the image quality can be effectively evaluated under various complex backgrounds without being influenced by the image content, and the evaluation is consistent with subjective evaluation of people in grade.