Arid climate disasters bring huge losses and development pressures to Mongolia Plateau, which is the most sensitive and typical region in the transition zone of arid and semi-arid climate. Since 1980, the policies implemented by the Chinese government exert some effects on the livelihood activities of farmers and herdsmen households but seemed not enough. In this article, we construct a research framework of Disaster vulnerability assessment -contribution of disaster vulnerability factors -driving mechanism of disaster vulnerability - sus-tainable development model. A questionnaire survey and key person interviews were carried out in villages/ gachas of Darhan Muminggan United Banner, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, and 967 data were collected from farmers and herdsmen households. On this basis, we constructed an indicators system and a model for the vulnerability assessment of farmers and herdsmen households to arid climate disasters. Then the main influ-encing factors of the vulnerability of farmers and herdsmen households were identified by the factor contribution model. The main research results are as follows: (i) The vulnerability of farmers and herdsmen households was high to arid climate disasters. The vulnerability can be ranked as herdsmen households > combined occupation households > farmers households. (ii) The vulnerability of farmers households was affected by farmland area and income source, drought intensity and household saving, drought frequency and labor capacity are the main influencing factors. (iii) The vulnerability of herdsmen households was affected by arid climate disasters, and induced by the less effective traditional adaptation mode and the lack of new adaptation mode. (iv) The model of mixed livelihood of government and farmers and herdsmen was suggested to improve active and planned adaptation behavior. This study promotes the cross-application of behavioral psychology, social capital, policy externality and other theories in the study of drought disaster vulnerability and the interaction mechanism of farm and pastoral households. It provides reference for the study of disaster vulnerability associated with climate change in similar regions around the world.