Maize is one of the most important crops in China,both as human food and livestock feed. However,drought has become the key climate disaster affecting the maize production recently,particularly in northern part of the country,a primary maize cultivation area in China. The temporal and spatial changes of drought impact on maize have therefore aroused more and more concerns. Most previous studies investigated the drought impacts through climate indices methods, such as SPI,which usually neglected the crop res...