Abstract: Hydrological drought has seriously constrained the socio-economic development of China. Under the influence of climate change and human activities, hydrological droughts occur frequently, leading to the more prominent problem of water shortage in basins. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the influence of different factors on hydrological droughts from a multi-factorial perspective, so as to provide a reference for drought relief in basins. To this end, the Xiangjiang and Weihe basins, which are typical basins in China with prominent water use conflicts and severe droughts, were selected as the study areas to investigate the effects of precipitation characteristics and land cover changes on hydrological droughts in the two basins. Firstly, the Pettitt mutation test and the rainfall-runoff double cumulative curve method were used to determine mutation points of streamflow in the two basins, and the hydrological drought events in the Xiangjiang and Weihe basins before and after the mutation points were identified according to standardized streamflow index. Finally, the impacts of changes in precipitation characteristics and land cover on hydrological droughts in two basins during different periods of time were analyzed based on the comparison of the random forest and linear regression methods. The results indicate that the runoff in the Xiangjiang River Basin did not change suddenly between 1982 and 2015. The precipitation characteristics are the main factors influencing hydrological drought in the Xiangjiang basin, contributing to 53.4% of hydrological drought, with precipitation amount contributing 33.25%, which is 13.1% higher than the contribution of precipitation concentration. However, changes in land cover have no significant effects on hydrological drought in this basin, with a contribution rate of only 36.6%. The streamflow of the Weihe basin experienced sudden changes in 1993 and 2003, and the main influencing factors of hydrological drought in the basin were different in different time periods. During the period of 1982-1993, the dominant factor influencing the intensity of the local hydrological drought was precipitation amount, with a contribution rate of 34.4%. The contribution of precipitation characteristics and land cover to drought was equal during 1994-2003, while changes in forest cover became the main factor influencing drought in the Weihe basin during 2004-2015, with a contribution rate of 40%. Based on the research results, water management authorities can tailor drought preparedness measures to the climatic conditions and land cover of local basins.