Abstract: Xihanshui River is an significant tributary in the upper reaches of the Jialing River in the Yangtze River Basin. In order to explore the actual hydrological characteristics of Xihanshui River basin, the runoff reduction calculation was carried out based on hydrological measured data from 1956 to 2016. The precipitation and runoff variation in Xihanshui River basin were analyzed by Mann-Kendall test, cumulative anomaly method, serial cluster analysis method and so on. The results showed that the precipitation and runoff displayed decreasing trend. Besides, the precipitation trend was significant but the runoff trend was not. For the precipitation, the most distinct sudden change was in 1993, and the relatively distinct sudden changes were in 1968 and 1977. For the runoff, the most distinct change was in 1993, and the relatively distinct sudden change was in 1968. Furthermore, the runoff sudden change time was generally consistent with the hydraulic engineering construction time, showing the impact of human activities on the runoff in Xihanshui River basin.