This paper proposes a joint source-channel coding scheme based on integer wavelet high frequency zerotree, which can produce embedded progressive code stream with low bit-rate. In this scheme, by scanning the source with a set of pre-set thresholds, value and location information of significant wavelet coefficients are got, encoded and transmitted, respectively. The code stream resulted from this procedure can be transmitted losslessly and progressively over noiseless channels, or embedded progressively and reliably with a low bit-rate over noisy channels (random or burst noise). Experiments show that this scheme can get high PSNR and compression rate over noisy channels, and can transmit the source more reliably and robustly with low bit-rate over varying channels. Therefore it is competent for application in wireless communication.