Abstract: Danjiang River basin is the important water source of south-to-north water transfer project. Affected by various factors, the runoff discharge and sediment load have changed greatly in recent years. Understanding the discharge and sediment variation is great significance for water resource management and soil and water conservation policy implementation. Based on the runoff and suspended load sediment discharge data during the 1958-2015 periods in Jingziguan hydrological station, runoff and suspended load sediment discharge variation characteristics were studied by using of the non-parametric Mann-Kendall trend test, sliding t test. The occurrence of abrupt changes was detected using double mass curve method. The controlling factors of runoff and suspended load sediment discharge were also identified in this paper. The trend test results represent that the annual runoff and sediment load have decreased significantly. It was in a period of rich runoff and rich sediment before 1972 and from 1982 to 1989, and in a period of low runoff and low sediment from 1972 to 1981 and from 1990 to 2015. The abrupt change years of runoff and sediment were in 1983 and 1989 respectively. We used quantitative method to separate out the effects of climate change (rainfall) and human activities on changes in runoff and sediment discharge. Climate change was estimated to account for 41.2%, whereas human activities accounted for 58.8%. Human activities appear to have played a more prominent role compared to rainfall (climate change) to suspended load sediment discharge.