A fundamentally cost-effective approach to reduce water outflows from rice fields is to grow the crop like an upland crop, such as wheat or maize. Aerobic rice are grown in non-puddled, nonsaturated or aerobic soil without ponded water. Unlike upland rice, aerobic rice system requires supplementary irrigation, inputs and special aerobic rice varieties to achieve high yields. The target domains for aerobic rice are favorable uplands, rainfed lowlands and water scarce irrigated areas.

Under aerobic rice systems, seepage, percolation and evaporation losses are minimized because there is no ponded water layer, and the large amount of water used for wet land preparation is eliminated.

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Now that you can describe aerobic rice and how it can conserve water, we can proceed in understanding the nature of saturated soil culture as another water saving option..