The increasing population and the need for more food have made demands on water resources due to crop production in Cambodia. Rice (Oryza sativa. L) is widely cultivated in Cambodia, but it consumes considerably more water than any other crop. In the context of water scarcity due to global climate change and limited water sources, rice cultivation in Cambodia has been worsened by drought and no water for irrigation. the strategies for preventing the overuse of safe water resources for agriculture is to increase agricultural productivity by reducing the amount of irrigation water with a slight reduction or maintaining the yields. It requires irrigation management to change from traditional irrigation. This study aims to evaluate the effect of different water-saving methods to define suitable methods for local rice in the dry season at CARDI, Cambodia. The experiment was split-plot based on a randomised complete block design with 3 treatments and 3 replications. The treatments were conventional irrigation (CK), Shallow-deep-Shallow irrigation (S), and Shallow and Frequent irrigation (Q). The result of this study showed that Shallow-deep-shallow (S), Shallow and Frequent significantly improved water saving by 32% to 53% over CK (p < 0.05). Water productivity (WP) ranged from 0.61 to 0.89 Kg/m3. However, the yield of rice showed insignificant variation in terms of rice yield, 1000-grain yield, and also for its yield components measured such as plant height (P> 0.05) compared to CK treatment and the average yield of rice ranged from 3.2 tons/ha, 3.3 tons/ha, and 3.8 tons/ha in Q, S, and CK. The results showed that less water can be used to produce a similar yield of rice under water-saving irrigation practices (S & Q) compared to the conventional method (CK). Adopting water-saving irrigation (Q) produced an acceptable rice yield with the highest water productivity among the irrigation practices—however, future research needs to be conducted to improve rice yield by choosing resistant rice with pest and stemborer disease and improve fertilizer application. The findings are significant for regions experiencing water shortages, providing vital information to policymakers, farmers, and agricultural departments