In this paper, we analyzed historical variations of stream flow, precipitation and temperature for the Xiang River catchment.The responses of stream flow to climate change are investigated using a monthly water balance model and hypothetical climate scenarios.The results show that the recorded annual discharge at Xiangtan station has not increased significantly over the period of 1960-2010 with linear growthrates of 47.5m3 s-1/10a.Annual mean discharge is highly correlated to annual catchment mean precipitationbut weakly correlated to annual mean temperature.It is estimated that a 2℃ rise in temperature would lead to 4.25#-7.38# decrease in stream flow, while a 10# increase in precipitation would result in 13.21#-15.53 # increases in stream flow.It is essential to consider potential impact of climate change, particularly on possible implications for precipitation variability, in future water resources management and natural disaster mitigation.