Drought is one of the most complex naturally occurring disasters that results in seriousrnhuman life, environmental, social and economic costs around the world. Particularly,rnagricultural drought in developing countries like Ethiopia is very disastrous causingrnpopulation displacement, food shortage, loss of life and reduction of agricultural output. Inrnorder to monitor agricultural drought risk, GIS and remote sensing have a significant rolernwhich paves the way for development of drought coping strategies. This research wasrnconducted in East Shewa Zone of Oromia Region of Ethiopia with the objective of mappingrnagricultural drought risk using GIS and remote sensing. The research was also aimed atrnidentification of major drought coping strategies practiced in the study area. To achievernthese objectives, both primary and secondary sources of data were employed. Both satelliternremote sensing data and socioeconomic data was utilized in this research. In addition, keyrninformant interviews and focus group discussions were employed to identify drought copingrnstrategies. The result of drought severity index indicated that 2005 and 2009 were years ofrndrought while 2013 identified as wet year. On the other hand based the result of SPI 2005rnand 2009 were years of droughts while 2012 wet year. The result also showed that there is anrnincreasing correlation (r = 0.7) between long term NDVI and seasonal rainfalls. The resultsrnwere supported by the interviews and focus group discussions. Based on the resultrndroughtbrissk map, 5.1% of the zone are under extreme drought risk, 31.9% severe drought,rn27.1% moderate drought and 32.5% are under mild drought. Thus, it is only the remainingrn3% of the East Shewa Zone that are not vulnerable to drought. The study identified the majorrndrought coping strategies in the area to be receiving of food, water, edible oil, and other foodrnsupplements by the government and NGOs. In addition, reducing food intake, petty trading,rnhoarse cart and daily labor, selling charcoal and dried cow dung were also the copingrnstrategies employed during drought years by the affected communities. It is recommendedrnthat for detailed investigation of drought risk assessment using long-term SPOT NDVIrncharacterized by high spatial resolution is good for the study area. Moreover, establishmentrnof formal early warning information centers particularly for rainfall distributions wouldrnboost the application of different drought coping strategies to mitigate impacts of droughts.rnKey words: Drought risk, coping strategies, GIS, NDVI, remote sensing, SPOT.