Abstract: The use of multimedia sensor nodes can significantly enhance the capability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for event description. In a number of scenarios, e.g., an erupting volcano, the WSNs are not deployed to work for an extremely long time. Instead, the WSNs aim to deliver continuous and reliable multimedia data as much as possible within an expected lifetime. In this paper, we focus on the efficient gathering of multimedia data in WSNs within an expected lifetime. An adaptive scheme to dynamically adjust the transmission Radius and data generation Rate Adjustment (RRA) is proposed based on a cross layer design by considering the interaction among physical, network and transport layers. We first minimize the end-to-end transmission delay in WSNs while using the minimum data generation rate. In this phase, an optimal transmission radius can be derived. Then, using this transmission radius, we adaptively adjust the data generation rate to increase the amount of gathered data. Simulation results show that the proposed RRA strategy can effectively enhance the data gathering performance in wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs) by dynamically adjusting the transmission radius of sensor nodes and the data generation rate of source nodes.