In this paper, we present a multiple hierarchical image coding and transmission scheme in which both the fragile structure of the set partitioning in hierarchical trees (SPIHT) source coding and unequal bit error sensitivity in the coded bitstreams have been taken into account. Multiple subsampling is applied to split the wavelet coefficients of the source image into multiple subsources so that each subsource is a crude representation of the original image. Therefore, the sequential dependence in the coded bitstream is broken and the error propagation is limited to a single subsource. Each subsource is coded using the SPIHT algorithm to achieve the high source coding performance. Cyclic redundancy code and rate compatible punctured convolutional (RCPC) code have been employed as the channel coding method to offer unequal error protection to the source coded bits. In each substream, all the bits in the same bit-layer are protected with the same channel coding rate. The higher the bit-layer, the more the channel coding protection is provided. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme has an excellent error resilient performance for image transmission over wireless channels with time varying and bursty error characteristics. In particular, the basic image structure is preserved even in highly noisy channels.