Multiple description (MD) coding has many applications in transmission of images over unreliable packet or multiple path networks that can not guarantee lossless data delivery. In this paper, an effective multiple description image coding scheme is introduced. This scheme is mainly based on the wavelet transform and multiple description lattice vector quantization (MDLVQ). The haracteristics of wavelet coefficients in different frequency subbands are taken into account in the design of the MD image coder with different optimized MDLVQ parameters. The experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.