Along with the increase of population and extraordinary economic and social development, human appropriation of freshwater supply increases rapidly. Anthropogenic activities have become an important driving factor of the large-scale terrestrial water cycle. The hydrological effects of human water use have attracted growing attention. In this paper, we briefly reviewed the recent studies addressing the anthropogenic disturbance of the largescale terrestrial water cycle. The review focused on the direct alteration of the water cycle for human needs, with special coverage for the primary aspects of human water use such as irrigation, domestic and industrial water use, reservoir regulation and groundwater mining. The state-of-the-art parameterization schemes of human water use for macroscale land surface hydrological modeling were introduced and the limitations of the schemes were discussed. Considering the impacts of human water use on the terrestrial water cycle is currently a challenge for macroscale land surface hydrological modeling, which hinders the use of the models in assessing water resources under changing environment. Further studies are needed to understand the interactions between human and water systems, to develop integrated assessment model of coupled humanwater systems, and to assess regional and global water security.