As the impact of climate warming on agro-ecosystems intensifies, the arid and semi-arid crops in the northwest, where water resources are extremely scarce, will face major challenges. In this paper, the water control starts from the corn tasseling period to the end of the growth period (T1 treatment) and the natural drought at the whole growth period (T2 treatment) in arid and semi-arid regions, the similarities and differences of the formation of drought disasters to the same crop were revealed in arid and semi-arid regions, in order to provide a theoretical basis for grasping the crop drought inducing-disaster process in different climatic regions. The results showed that different drought stresses affected significantly the plant height, leaf area and chlorophyll content of maize in arid and semi-arid regions. During the whole growth period of drought treatment, the response of maize in arid area to drought stress was more sensitive than that in semi-arid area, while T1 treatment had more significant effects on the growth of maize plant height and leaf area per plant in semi-arid rain-fed area. The leaf area per plant of maize under different drought treatments in semi-arid area showed an increasing trend from the horse chestnut stage to grain filling stage as a whole. Although drought stress reduces the leaf area per plant of maize, in order to ensure the later growth and development of plants, the increase of leaf area make up for the lack of photosynthetic yield due to drought stress. Therefore, in order to ensure the yield of maize in arid and semi-arid regions, semi-arid areas are suitable for planting varieties with strong photosynthetic capacity, arid areas are suitable for planting varieties with suitable plant height and leaf area, and the tasseling period is a sensitive period for maize growth and development to drought in semi-arid regions.
