Abstract: Most current studies on the temporal variation characteristics of precipitation and runoff series focus on the mean features, and consequently the results provide little insight into the tail parts of distributions and are affected by anomalies easily. To solve this problem, we have applied a quantile regression method to the precipitation and runoff series of the Luan River basin. Pettitt test and Mann-Kendall test were used to analyze the temporal variations in terms of mean features. The results show that the annual precipitation series are essentially stationary while the annual runoff series manifest abrupt changes and hence are non-stationary. Therefore, no response relationship can be found between these two series. Then, we applied a quantile regression method to analyze the same series of precipitation and runoff using high and low levels of quantiles. It demonstrates that at different quantiles, the precipitation series in most sub-basins are stationary while the runoff series in all the sub-basins have a significant descending trend with a faster rate at high quantiles than those at low ones. And in several sub-basins, a good response relationship exists between precipitation and runoff at different quantiles, while in the whole basin, the relationship is not obvious due to the impact of human activities on runoff. This conclusion is useful to peer studies on temporal variations of precipitation and runoff.