Abstract: Dahuofang Reservoir (DHF Reservoir) plays an important role in supporting social and economic development in central and southern Liaoning Province. The runoff is crucial to DHF Reservoir operation. In this study, on the basis of the runoff data from1980 to 2010, we investigated runoff characteristics of DHF Reservoir and water source area of water diversion project by mathematical statistics method. We also analyzed compensation characteristics for water diversion to DHF Reservoir in different periods by using copula function and summarized inter-basin water transfer conditions to DHF Reservoir. The results show that for the DHF Reservoir and water source area, synchronous frequencies of wet-dry runoff in whole year, spring, flood season and dry season were all more than 70%. The probability is 62.5% for water transfer from water source area to DHF Reservoir in different periods. In the future studies, we need to take into account the yearly regulation function of DHF Reservoir, and research water diversion strategies under different runoff compensation for DHF Reservoir in order to prepare water-diversion plans in flood, normal and dry seasons. This paper can provide references for economical operation of reservoirs water diversion and reservoir comprehensive benefits maximization.