The invention relates to a method for monitoring and calculating settlement of coal mining surface based on unmanned aerial vehicle remote sensing, comprising the steps of I, planning an unmanned aerial vehicle flight line according to landform, range, position and ground resolution of a research area; II, remotely controlling an unmanned aerial vehicle to fly according to a set flight line, and collecting a remote sensing image; III, laying out a plurality of quantity control points according to the range and geological characteristics of the research area, and measuring these points one by one; IV, using professional remote-sensing image processing software to generate a point cloud, and exporting surface three-dimensional coordinates of the research area; V, according to the ground control measurement results, using a four-parameter surface fitting correction model to the three-dimensional coordinates measured by the unmanned aerial vehicle; VI, comparing the corrected surface elevation with pre-mining tomographic map elevation, and calculating post-mining surface settlement. The method has the advantages that the steps are simple, the design is reasonable; implementation is convenient, calculating precision is high, and the surface settlement due to coal mining can be calculated effectively.