The Beichuan River is the main water resource of the area around Xining City. In recent years, there was a serious ecological environment degeneration in the Beichuan River Basin because of the influence of global climate change and human activity disturbance. In this study, the streamflow data and the precipitation data during the period of 1961 - 2013 were analyzed,and the Mann-Kendall test was employed to detect the long-term change of precipitation and runoff volume during the study period. The spatiotemporal distribution of hydrologic features was analyzed by the Mrolet wavelet analysis method. Moreover, the remote sensing images of the vegetation NDVI data during the period from 1982 to 2013 were interpreted by RS and GIS means. Furthermore, the relationships among precipitation,vegetation and streamflow in the Beichuan River Basin were analyzed. Results showed that precipitation and vegetation NDVI in the Beichuan River Basin increased during the period from 1982 to 2013. The average annual precipitation was 518 mm and increased by 0.729 5 mm·a ~(- 1) during the period of 1961 - 2013. The average, highest and lowest values of vegetation NDVI were 0.365,0. 385 and 0.333 respectively. Streamflow decreased during the period of 1961 - 2013, the average streamflow of the Beichuan River was 269 mm and decreased by 0.490 5 mm·a ~(- 1). The periodic variation of precipitation and runoff volume was different at different time scale. There was a significant positive correlation between streamflow and precipitation,and also a positive correlation between precipitation and vegetation NDVI. Human activities affected the streamflow significantly.