Water-saving technologies for rice production system: A review

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the most important staple food crop in the world and also provides livelihood to millions of rural households. Conventional transplanted rice production requires significant amounts of irrigation water, labour, and energy. With the growing population and the challenges of climate change there is a need to enhance rice production sustainably. The declining per capita availability of freshwater necessitates production of rice with limited water, using alternate water management options, which can increase the water-use efficiency or water productivity with marginal or no reduction of grain yield. There are various alternative methods of rice production that can enhance water productivity like aerobic rice, system of rice intensification, direct seeded rice, alternate wetting and drying, drip irrigation and saturated soil culture. In this article, different water-saving technologies is reviewed and examines how these technologies improve water use efficiency in rice production.