China’s regional drought risk under climate change: a two-stage process assessment approach

China is predicted to have higher drought risk with global warming, and for better preparedness and mitigation, it is necessary to find out the risky areas and reveal the essential causes. This paper develops an integrated index of drought risk following the pressure–state–impact process in which drought hazard and vulnerability are reflected by two stages of pressure–state and state–impact, respectively. Accordingly, the network structure data envelopment analysis model is employed to calculate the degree of drought risk, hazard and vulnerability. Then, this study evaluates 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China, and the tempospatial patterns of regional drought hazard, vulnerability and risk during 2006–2011 are presented. Moreover, the determinants of risk in different parts of China are also investigated. The results suggest that the northeast and southwest of China are more potential to be affected by drought due to the high degree of hazard and vulnerability. The dominant factor affecting drought risk in the northwest is vulnerability, because the hazard in this part is comparatively low. However, although the drought situation is severe in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the southeastern coastal areas, the strong resilience to drought makes the risk remain low. It is concluded that the effective way to decrease drought risk is to promote the level of water efficiency and agricultural irrigation, so that low sensitivity and high adaptive capacity would contribute to vulnerability reduction.