Severe droughts in the year 1998 and 2014 in Sarawak due to the strong El Niño has impacted the water supply and irrigated agriculture. In this study, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was used for drought identification and monitoring in Sarawak River Basin. Using monthly precipitation data between the year 1975 and 2016 for 15 rainfall stations in the basin, the drought index values were obtained for the time scale of three, six and nine months. Rainfall trend for the years in study was also assessed using the Mann–Kendall test and Sen's slope estimator and compared with the drought index. Findings showed that generally there was a decreasing trend for the SPI values for the three time scales, indicating a higher tendency of increased drought event throughout the basin. Furthermore, it was observed that there was an increase in the numbers of dry months in the recent decade for most of the rainfall stations as compared to the previous 30 to 40 years, which could be due to climate change. Findings from this study are valuable for the planning and formulating of drought strategies to reduce and mitigate the adverse effects of drought.

由于强烈的厄尔尼诺现象，1998年和2014年砂拉越的严重干旱影响了供水和灌溉农业。在这项研究中，标准降水指数（SPI）用于沙捞越河流域的干旱识别和监测。利用1975年至2016年期间流域15个降雨站的月度降水数据，获得了三个，六个月和九个月时间范围内的干旱指数值。还使用Mann-Kendall检验和Sen的斜率估算器评估了研究年份的降雨趋势，并与干旱指数进行了比较。研究结果表明，在三个时间尺度上，SPI值总体上呈下降趋势，表明整个盆地干旱事件增加的趋势更高。此外，据观察，与过去的30到40年相比，大多数降雨站在最近十年中的干旱月份数有所增加。这项研究的结果对于减少和减轻干旱不利影响的干旱战略的规划和制定是有价值的。