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The main objective of soil improvement by drying is water balance regulation in the sense of decreasing water reserves, with the help of a group of agricultural and engineering reorganizing measurements. The man, in his daily work, often comes up against the need of modifying or remaking some natural—climatic, hydrological and soil conditions, among others. Some lands are naturally leveled, they have natural drainages and deep plough layers, they consist of naturally-blended clay soils with an appropriate amount of sand, they can be naturally-irrigated grasslands or covered by a loam layer; others should be leveled and require artificial drainages, the arable layer should be artificially deepened, the right proportion of clay and sand must be artificially created, that is, they are grasslands without natural irrigation that should be modified by working on it, to achieve the same conditions of other improved soils through water improvement by drying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiment was developed under semicontrolled conditions in Los Palacios Rice Research Station for three years (2005-2007) applying a randomized complete experimental design, two treatments and five replicates. The study consisted of using a water evaporation retardant (stearilic alcohol) making a monolayer on the free water surface, which prevented big water losses by evaporation; the treatment with retardant reduced losses up to 14.97 mg.min-1.cm-2, whereas the treatment without it reached the biggest water losses: 30.27 mg.min-1.cm-2; thus, the retardant is very effective, since its application proved to reduce significantly water losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]