Responses of water resources to climate change in arid regions are important for sustainable development of society, economy and ecological environment. Based on the annual mountainous runoff data measured by Binggou hydrological station of the Taolaihe River during 19612010, along with the monthly mean temperature and total precipitation datasets, the runoff change characteristics were analyzed by using linear tendency, proportional departures, Mann-Kendall mutation test, R/S analysis, complex wavelet transform method. The effect of climate change on runoff was also studied using multiple linear regression models. The results showed that: the intra-annual distribution of the runoff was extremely uneven. The annual runoff was mainly contributed by those occurred from June to October with a proportion of 62.11%. The annual runoff experienced " abundance-wither-abundance-wither" four fluctuations with a significant mutation from high to low in 1984, but it totally represented an insignificantly decreasing trend at a rate of -0.10*10~8 m~3/10a. The Hurst index was 0. 67, which indicates that the decreasing trends will last in the near future. The annual runoff had obviously seven oscillations in the time scale of 22 a. According to its periodic regularity, it will be abundant during 20102015. The annual mean temperature firstly represented a weakly increasing trend and then quickly increased, while the annual precipitation significantly increased in the recent 50 years. The effect of climate change to the runoff in different periods was variable. The multiple linear regression results revealed that the runoff was closely related with precipitation before 1984. However, temperature, precipitation and evaporation had together become main factor that influenced the runoff variation after 1984. On the other hand, the change of the land cover due to climate change and human activities also impacted on the runoff change to some extent.