Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2019, 9, 298-309 http://www.scirp.org/journal/acs ISSN Online: 2160-0422 ISSN Print: 2160-0414 DOI: 10.4236/acs.2019.93021 Jun. 17, 2019 298 Atmospheric and Climate Sciences Assessment of Drought Vulnerability and Occurrence Zones in North Central Nigeria Oye Ideki 1* , Vincent E. Weli 2 1 Department of Meteorology and Climate Change, Nigeria Maritime University, Okerenkoko, Nigeria 2 Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria Abstract Assessment of drought vulnerability and occurrence zones in North Central Nigeria was carried out in this study using standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) 12 months’ time scale was computed from long-term rainfall data between 1960 and 2015 obtained from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) Abuja. The SPI results were further subjected to Mann-Kendal and Sen’s slope analysis for trend detec- tion. To assess the vulnerability of drought and occurrence zones, the SPI and other geo-spatial techniques were employed to generate drought vulnerability maps for three epochs: 2000-2005, 2005-2010 and 2010-2015 respectively. The SPI values were interpolated using Inverse Weighted (IDW) techniques in ArcGIS10.5 to generate the vulnerability maps for the selected model years. The outcome of drought trend and vulnerability maps reveals increasing drought trend dominated by near normal and moderate conditions in Abuja, Ilorin and Lokoja while moderate and severe droughts were observed in Minna and Jos. The study therefore recommends holistic drought monitoring and management strategies in order to mitigate its adverse impact on water resources and rainfall-dependent agriculture. Keywords Drought, Vulnerability, Rainfall, Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Occurrence Zones, North Central, Nigeria 1. Introduction Drought is a devastating disaster that is known globally due to its subtle effects on agriculture, forestry, vegetation and human economic activities [1]. The agro-industry is severely affected by drought as vegetation and plants suffer the How to cite this paper: Ideki, O. and Weli, V.E. (2019) Assessment of Drought Vulne- rability and Occurrence Zones in North Central Nigeria. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 9, 298-309. https://doi.org/10.4236/acs.2019.93021 Received: April 4, 2019 Accepted: June 14, 2019 Published: June 17, 2019 Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access