Terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) is the key connection of a wide array of Earth system processes, which links water cycles and energy balances over land. The Huaihe River basin is located in the transition climate zone from North China to South China. In order to further understand the response of water cycles to climate change,global or regional,spatial and temporal analysis of ET in the Huaihe River basin is essential. Remote sensing technology has obvious advantages in monitoring evapotranspiration of heterogeneous surface. Based on verification of the accuracy of MOD16 ET,in this paper,the spatial and temporal characteristics of the Huaihe River basin were analyzed entirely. It is found that (1) the magnitude and spatial distribution of MOD16 ET over the Huaihe River basin are basically reasonable; (2) the multi-year averaged annual ET corresponds with the sum of four seasonal ET of the basin and has characterized by higher value in south and lower value in north; (3) in the last 15 years,the average annual ET of whole basin has ranged from 531.7 to 634.0 mm,with an indistinctive downward tendency; seasonal variation of ET has been approximately unimodal,which changes obviously with reason: 143.7 mm in spring,257.2 mm in summer,120.7 mm in autumn and 66.6 mm in winter; (4) spatially,in the northwest,annual ET changing rate in grid scale is mainly dominated by summer,autumn and winter ET changing rate,but in the east annual ET changing rate is dominated by spring ET changing rate primarily. The research results have important significance for how to solve the shortage of water resources, how to utilize the limited water resources,and how to monitor and forewarn flood and drought disaster.