Waterlogging

Waterlogging occurs when soil becomes saturated with water, restricting air available to plant roots. It impairs root respiration and can damage or kill plants.

Soil aeration: The exchange of gases between soil pores and the atmosphere. Water fills soil pores that would otherwise carry oxygen to roots.
Flooding: The inundation of normally dry land by water. Floodwater can saturate soils, though waterlogging may occur without surface inundation.
Agricultural drainage: The removal of excess water from farmland through surface channels or buried systems. Drainage lowers soil saturation and restores air-filled pores around crop roots.
Hypoxia: A condition in which oxygen availability is insufficient for normal biological activity. Waterlogged roots commonly experience hypoxia as soil oxygen is depleted.
Drought: A prolonged period of unusually low water availability relative to climatic or ecological needs. Drought limits plant water supply, while waterlogging deprives roots of air.
Root respiration: The cellular process by which plant roots use oxygen to release energy from sugars. Oxygen shortage restricts the energy roots can obtain from respiration.
Paddy field: A level field deliberately flooded or saturated for growing rice. Rice cultivation uses managed waterlogging that rice varieties are adapted to tolerate.
Tile drainage: A subsurface drainage system that uses buried perforated pipes to collect and convey excess soil water. It removes water from fields where surface drainage alone cannot prevent saturation.
Denitrification: Microbial reduction of nitrate to gaseous nitrogen compounds under oxygen-limited conditions. Saturated, oxygen-poor soils can lose plant-available nitrogen through this process.
Water deficit: A condition in which a plant's water supply falls short of its demand. It is the opposite root-zone water stress, despite also impairing plant growth.

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