Abstract: Based on the data from 8 meteorological stations and 7 hydrologic stations of the Tarim River in 1957-2003,the article analyzes the variation tendency of annual runoff and characteristics of temperature and precipitation of the main headstreams of the Tarim river,and then discusses the relationship between climate changes and annual runoff in the headstreams.Afterward,the nonparametric method is applied to test the correlation and consistency between temperature,precipitation and runoff.It is shown that when significant level satisfies with 0.05,the temperature of the headstreams has a liner-increasing trend while the precipitation increases weakly.But the runoff is always an obviously increasing trend since 1994.By the two-variable Wilcoxon testing,the temperature and runoff,precipitation and runoff respectively have a certain correlation.By the Kendall’s W testing,the runoff,temperature and precipitation of the Akesu River and the Kaidu River all have obvious correlation.The results show that the runoff of the two rivers increases with the increasing of the temperature and precipitation.However,since significant level does not satisfy with the testing standard,the three variables show different change trend in the Hotan River and the Yerqiang River.So we discuss the main climate factors affecting the runoff change by the nonparametric and parametric method.The results show that the increase of temperature may be the more obvious factor to result in increasing the runoff in the headstreams of the Tarim River.