Abstract: Under the background of global climate change, the drought estimated by the stationary standardized precipitation index (SSPI) may be greatly deviated due to the nonstationarity of precipitation time series. In this study, the non-stationary gamma model with variable parameters is established by fitting the model parameters with climate indices as explanatory variables based on GAMLSS model, and the non-stationary standardized precipitation index (NSPI) is calculated and compared with the SSPI. Then, the spatio-temporal change characteristics of drought in the Yangtze River Basin from 1962 to 2016 are investigated by using the NSPI. The results are as follows: (1) The changes of NSPI and SSPI are basically the same, but the non-stationary gamma model is better than stationary gamma model in reproducing precipitation to capture precipitation changes under the current global climate change. (2) The drought in the Yangtze River Basin tends to increase from 1962 to 2016. The drought severity, duration, intensity and peak increased, respectively, with average rates of 0.064, 0.041, 0.023 and 0.027 per ten years in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, while increased, respectively, by average rates of 0.151, 0.089, 0.021 and 0.030 per ten years in the middle and lower reaches. The intensity of drought is mainly mild to moderate drought. The drought is more serious in the source of the Yangtze River and the southwest of Sichuan Basin, while the drought is relatively mild in the upper reaches of Jinsha River and Yalong River and the south of Poyang Lake. (3) Compared with SSPI, the return period of the same drought severity and duration estimated by NSPI is larger, and the estimated drought events are more lumped. The drought risk of NSPI indicates that higher risk of drought occurs mainly in the source of Yangtze River, the lower reaches of Jinsha River and the middle of Dongting Lake Basin, while lower risk of drought covers mainly in the upper reaches of Sichuan river and the southeast of Poyang Lake. (4) The NSPI estimated by the non-stationary gamma model can better predict the drought characteristics, and the prediction performance of drought severity and duration is better.