[Objective] This paper analyzed the changing characteristics of precipitation in the Tieshan reservoir basin, a drinking water source of Hu'nan Province, in order to provide basis for the utilization and schedule of water resources in the basin.[Methods] Methods including linear regression, moving average, Mann-Kendall test, accumulative anomalies analysis sliding t-test and wavelet analysis, were used to analyze the changing characteristics of annual precipitation, precipitation in the flood season and precipitation in the non-flood season during the period from 1968 to 2014.[Results] ① The annual precipitation, precipitation in the flood and non-flood seasons increased slightly over the past 47 years. ② The annual precipitation showed abrupt change in 1987 and 2003, while the precipitation in the flood season showed abrupt change in 1992 and 2003. There was no abrupt precipitation change in the non-flood season. ③ Annual precipitation and precipitation in the flood season had a dominant period of about 29 years, and the precipitation in non-flood season had a dominant period of about 28 years. Basically, the periods for all the precipitations were the same.[Conclusion] The changing characteristics of the annual precipitation, precipitation in the flood and non-flood season were basically consistent with each other in Tieshan reservoir.