Exploring standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index for drought assessment in Bangladesh Md Giashuddin Miah & Hasan Muhammad Abdullah & Changyoon Jeong Received: 15 January 2017 /Accepted: 19 September 2017 # Springer International Publishing AG 2017 Abstract Drought is a critical issue, and it has a press- ing, negative impact on agriculture, ecosystems, liveli- hoods, food security, and sustainability. The problem has been studied globally, but its regional or even local dimension is sometimes overlooked. Local-level drought assessment is necessary for developing adapta- tion and mitigation strategies for that particular region. Keeping this in understanding, an attempt was made to create a detailed assessment of drought characteristics at the local scale in Bangladesh. Standardized precipitation evapotranspiration (SPEI) is a new drought index that mainly considers the rainfall and evapotranspiration data set. Globally, SPEI has become a useful drought index, but its local scale application is not common. SPEI base (0.5° grid data) for 110 years (1901–2011) was utilized to overcome the lack of long-term climate data in Bangladesh. Available weather data (1955– 2011) from Bangladesh Meteorology Department (BMD) were analyzed to calculate SPEI weather station using the SPEI calculator. The drivers for climate change-induced droughts were characterized by residual temperature and residual rainfall data from different BMD stations. Grid data (SPEI base ) of 26 stations of BMD were used for drought mapping. The findings revealed that the frequency and intensity of drought are higher in the northwestern part of the country which makes it vulnerable to both extreme and severe droughts. Based on the results, the SPEI-based drought intensity and frequency analyses were carried out, em- phasizing Rangpur (northwest region) as a hot spot, to get an insight of drought assessment in Bangladesh. The findings of this study revealed that SPEI could be a valuable tool to understand the evolution and evaluation of the drought induced by climate change in the country. The study also justified the immediate need for drought risk reduction strategies that should lead to relevant policy formulations and agricultural innovations for de- veloping drought adaptation, mitigation, and resilience mechanisms in Bangladesh. Keywords Climate change . Drought . Risk . Severity . SPEI . Mapping . Monitoring . Bangladesh Introduction Bangladesh has an agrarian economy, and its agriculture contributes 18.6% of the country’ s GDP and employs around 45% of the total workforce (CIA 2011). The performance of agriculture sector has an overwhelming impact on the main macroeconomic indicators of pov- erty alleviation, human resource development, employ- ment generation, and food security (Abdullah 2014a). Environ Monit Assess (2017) 189:547 DOI 10.1007/s10661-017-6235-5 Md Giashuddin Miah and Hasan Muhammad Abdullah contributed equally to this work. M. G. Miah : H. M. Abdullah (*) GIS and Remote Sensing Lab., Department of Agroforestry and Environment, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University (BSMRAU), Gazipur 1706, Bangladesh e-mail: hasan.abdullah@bsmrau.edu.bd C. Jeong Red River Research Station, AgCenter, Louisiana State University, Bossier, LA 71112, USA