[Background] It is especially significant to study the hydrological and meteorological elements of river basin against the backdrop of global warming. The river runoff is a result of combined influence from both meteorological factors and the condition of underlying surface. Climate change is one of the major driving factors in the variation of runoff and also exerts direct impact on the water resources system. Despite of that, the underlying surface transformation by human being activities also change the runoff of river basin. [Methods] In order to reveal the influence of meteorological factors and the disturbance of human activity on the runoff change in Yanhe River basin, this article analyzed the runoff and meteorological elements of Yanhe River basin from 1955 to 2012 by means of Mann-Kendall test and R/S methods. The year of abrupt runoff change was identified by Pettitt's test, and the hydrological sensitivity analysis was adopted to quantitatively differentiate the contributions between meteorological elements and human activities to runoff change of Yanhe River basin. [Results] The precipitation and runoff happened much more from June to September, during this period, the precipitation and runoff were 71% and 63% of the total annual amount. The runoff presented an increasing tendency in Jan., Feb., May, Dec., especially in Jan. respectively; and the runoff in other months descended, especially in March, July, Aug. respectively. The runoff showed a descending tendency in spring flood period from March to April and flood period from June to October. Conversely, the runoff in drought period increased. It showed that the annual runoff distribution tended to be more even, and the runoff process became mild. During the 58 years between 1955 to 2012, the precipitation of Yanhe River basin reduced 89.4 mm, with a temperature rising of 2.15 ℃ and a 17.3 mm decrease of runoff depth, both climate and runoff depth registered evident variation, demonstrating a warming-drying trend of the basin. As the Hurst index indicated, this trend will remain in a period of time in the future. According to the Pettitt change-point test, the abrupt change of runoff occurred in 1996. The average annual runoff depth dropped 11.7 mm during 1996-2012 compared with that of 1955-1995, among which the contribution rate of human activities was 56% while climate change contributed 44%. [Conclusions] This article illustrates that the climate of the Yanhe River basin had the tendency of warming and drying, and human activities accounted for a large proportion in the runoff reduction. The results of the study in this area have favorable guiding significance to the reasonable use of water resources and the management.