Findings confirm that poor people may be more vulnerable to climate change.The huge socioeconomic costs of droughts make themselves a crucial target for impact assessments of climate change scenarios.Based on outputs from fifteen CMIP6 climate models under the four latest SSP-RCP scenarios (SSP1-2.6,SSP2-4.5,SSP3-7.0,and SSP5-8.5),drought characteristics (frequency,intensity and duration) at 1.5 and 2 ℃ warming levels were analyzed over the poverty-stricken areas of China.Results show that:(1) Relative to the baseline period (1995-2014),the annual mean temperature in poverty-stricken areas will increase by 1.1 and 1.8 ℃ at 1.5 and 2 ℃ global warming,respectively,which is faster than the global warming rate.The annual precipitation will also increase significantly,especially in north-west of poverty-stricken areas;(2) Relative to the baseline period,drought intensity will increase from slightly dryness to moderate dryness at the global warming of 1.5 ℃.However,most regions will see a decrease trend in both drought frequency (74％ of whole region) and duration (61％ of whole region).(3) At the global warming level of 2 ℃,drought intensity will still remain a moderate level,while drought frequency may keep decreasing.In some areas,the frequency is possible to decrease by 0.6 times annually.The drought duration tends to increase in the south and decrease in the north,which is expected to decrease by 1.3 months in some places (55％ of whole region).(4) When facing the additional global warming of 0.5 ℃,there are spatial similarities in the change of drought characteristics.The frequency and duration will both increase in southern region and decrease in northern region,while the intensity will increase in most regions.Our study suggests that limiting anthropogenic warming to 1.5 ℃,as aspired by the Paris Climate Agreement,may have benefits for future drought risk alleviation over the poverty-stricken areas of China.