Abstract: Ponds and small reservoirs are small water bodies which spread widely across the basin of the Dongting Lake. Understanding the diurnal of nitrogen(N) and phosphorus(P) component contents of water bodies in ponds and reservoirs helps to assist in the formulation of fine water quality observation and pollution prevention in the Dongting Lake basin. In this paper, four typical land-use landscape ponds and reservoirs were used to study the diurnal variation of the contents of N and P components, pH, DO and temperature in water bodies in the small agricultural headwater watershed of Jinjin in Dongting Lake basin. The experiments results showed that the types of land use landscapes around the ponds and reservoirs not only significantly affected the diurnal changes of pH, dissolved oxygen (DO) and water temperature but also caused differences in the contents of N and P components and their the ratios. The values of pH, DO and temperature of water bodies changed significantly during the day and night for the ponds and reservoirs in residential areas, farmland and tea plantation, and their curves showed an inverted U shape. However, the changes of N and P component contents were relatively insignificant in water bodies of ponds and reservoirs during the observation period. The contents of total nitrogen and phosphorus (TN, TP), dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus (TDN, TDP) and particulate nitrogen and phosphorus (PN, PP) of ponds and reservoirs in residential areas, farmland and tea gardens were significantly higher than those in forest land use. Moreover, the ecological stoichiometric ratios of different N and P components in the water bodies (TN∶TP, TDN∶TDP, PN∶PP) are ranked as follows: forest (TN∶TP:67.97, TDN∶TDP:65.12, PN∶PP:74.13) > tea plantation (TN∶TP: 30.03, TDN∶TDP: 15.10, PN∶PP: 52.95) > Farmland and Residential Areas (TN∶TP: 19.40 and 16.21, TDN∶TDP: 23.31 and 11.91, PN∶PP: 18.83 and 21.36). This indicates that agricultural land use/discharge of domestic sewage leads to the changing nutrient status of N and P in ponds and reservoirs, which shifts from being limited by P in the natural state to being limited by N under human disturbance in the study area. The research results show that time interval of water sampling not more than 12 hours is more helpful to understand the characteristics of water quality in ponds and reservoirs. Strengthening the water quality management to reduce the inputs of phosphorus pollutants into ponds and reservoirs in residential areas and farmland, will contribute to the prevention and control of phosphorus pollution in ponds and reservoirs of Dongting Lake Basin.