Haihe River basin is suffering from water scarcity partly due to dense population and rapid socio-economic development. It is very important to analyze the evolution of river runoff for the sustainable development of society economy. Taking upper Zhanghe river which belongs to Haihe River basin as study object, the paper used Mann-Kendall trend and abrupt change analysis and high-median-low flow partitioning framework to systematically study the evolution behavior of inter- vs. intra-annual runoff on the basis of discharge observation data from 1958 to 2012.The result showed that from 1958 to 2012,the runoff series from all gauges showed notable downward trend, the abrupt change occured around 1980.The occurrence frequency of low flow years sharply increased after then.The coefficient of annual variation showed an increase trend.The monthly runoff was generally declining with the most descending trend occured in flood season. The result indicated that the local water resources will face greater pressure and challenges because of the ever decreasing runoff.