Shiyang River Basin is located in the northwest China, and it is a typical fragile ecosystem area. This region is extremely sensitive to climatic changes, and therefore, monitoring these changes can provide an important evidence for revealing trends indrought-wet transition mechanisms in drought-prone and arid regions of Northwestern China, this study aimed to investigate monthly precipitation data obtained from four stations in Shiyang River Basin. In particular, the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Theory of Runs were adopted to analyze changes in climate drought-wet and space-time evolution of drought events on different time scale during a period of 54 years i.e., from 1960 to 2013. The main results of this study suggest that SPI characteristics at different time scale lead to SPI values were substantial sensitive to precipitation changes,and a smaller time scale resulted in a more sensitive response to one precipitation event. The inter-decadal,inter-annual and seasonal SPI showed an increasing trend. The wetting rate was the fastest in winter, which makes the largest contribution to annual wetting. The drought event duration, drought severity and drought intensity on different time scales showed a decreasing trend, and the fluctuations noticedwere gradually mild. The most serious agricultural drought and hydrological drought occurred during 1964 to 1965 and 1962 to 1964,respectively. The drought event duration during two time scales reduced gradually from upstream to downstream, and the longest agricultural drought occurred in Wushaoling areas,whereas the longest hydrological drought occurred in Yongchang and Minqin region. Drought severity of the drought events during the two time scales reduced the fastest in Wushaoling areas. Except for the three-month scale for drought intensity showing a slight increase in Wuwei and Minqin regions, the intensity of drought events showed a decreasing trend in other regions on different time scales. More frequent drought events and relatively higher drought intensity were noted in the middle reaches of the river, especially in Yongchang region.