The objectives of agricultural drainage systems are to reclaim and conserve land for agriculture, to increase crop yields, to permit the cultivation of more valuable crops, to allow the cultivation of more than one crop a year, and/or to reduce the costs of crop production in otherwise waterlogged land.
In agricultural land drainage, the purpose of water table control is to establish a depth of the water table that does no longer interfere negatively with the necessary farm operations and crop yields.
Agricultural drainage systems are systems that make it easier for water to flow from the land, so that agriculture can benefit from the subsequently reduced water levels. The systems can be made to ease the flow of water over the soil surface or through the underground, which leads to a distinction between "surface drainage systems" and
"subsurface drainage systems".
Both types of systems need an internal or "field drainage system", which lowers the water level in the field, and an external or "main drainage system", which transports the water to the outlet.
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