Bias corrected daily climate projections from five global circulation models (GCMs) under the RCP8.5 emission
scenarios were fed into a calibrated Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrologic model to project future
hydrological changes in China. The standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized runoff index (SRI) and
standardized soil moisture index (SSWI) were used to assess the climate change impact on droughts from
meteorological, agricultural, and hydrologic perspectives. Changes in drought severity, duration, and frequency
suggest that meteorological, hydrological and agricultural droughts will become more severe, prolonged, and
frequent for 2020–2049 relative to 1971–2000, except for parts of northern and northeastern China. The
frequency of long-term agricultural droughts (with duration larger than 4 months) will increase more than
that of short-termdroughts (with duration less than 4 months), while the opposite is projected for meteorological
and hydrological droughts. In extreme cases, the most prolonged agricultural droughts increased from 6 to 26
months whereas the most prolonged meteorological and hydrological droughts changed little. The most severe
hydrological drought intensity was about 3 times the baseline in general whereas the most severe meteorological
and agricultural drought intensities were about 2 times and 1.5 times the baseline respectively. For the prescribed
local temperature increments up to 3 °C, increase of agricultural drought occurrence is predicted whereas decreases
or little changes of meteorological and hydrological drought occurrences are projected for most temperature
increments. The largest increase of meteorological and hydrological drought durations and intensities occurred
when temperature increased by 1 °C whereas agricultural drought duration and intensity tend to increase
consistently with temperature increments. Our results emphasize that specificmeasures should be taken by specific
sectors in order to better mitigate future climate change associated with specific warming amounts. It is, however,
important to keep inmind that our resultsmay depend on the emission scenario, GCMs, impact model, time periods
and drought indicators selected for analysis.