The middle route of the South to North Water Transfer Project is originated from Danjiangkou reservoir in the middle and upper reaches of the Hanjiang River. As the water source area of water diversion project, it is of great significance to study the trends and characteristics of runoff in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River. The trends and variations of annual runoff for typical stations were analyzed using the cumulative anomaly and Mann Kendall methods, and Sliding t test and sequential clustering were used to analyze the change of annual runoff. Taking four hydrological stations including Wuhou, Yangxian, Shiquan, Hanzhong in the upper reaches of Hanjiang River as examples, the results showed that the runoff amount in the upper reaches of Hanjiang River showed a trend of decreasing since 1950s, the decreasing trend was significant especially after 1990s. The changing trend of annual runoff in each station was similar, and the average runoff has the phenomenon of alternating high or low. The abrupt analysis showed that the abrupt points of the runoff for the four stations are all in 1990.The decrease of runoff in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River was mainly affected by the decrease of precipitation and the increase of water using in social economy.