Droughts are the world’s most damaging and pressing natural disasters

causing tens of billions of dollars in global damages

and collectively affecting more people than any other form of devastating climate-related hazards.Due to the drought monitoring and prediction being an important step in the drought disaster management cycle

it is vital and necessary to choosing a suitable drought index for assessing drought conditions for China.To propose a composite drought index which could be applied widely over China

the Nanpanjiang River basin above the Xiaolongtan station was selected as the case study

site.Based on the grid-based soil moisture and generated runoff obtained by running the Xin’anjiang model

the soil moisture index and the standardized streamflow index were computed

then the short-term/long-term composite drought index was constructed by using the principal component analysis method with the self

c

alibrating Palmer drought index

Palmer hydrological index

ZIND

standardized precipitation evaportranspiration index

soil moisture index and the standardized streamflow index.Finally

the newly-developed composite drought index was applied in the Nanpanjiang River basin above the Xiaolongtan station to explore the feasibility and rationality of the drought index.The result revealed:the newly-developed short-term/long-term composite drought index has obtained very good achievement over Nanpanjiang River basin in China.