Drought stress is a serious limiting factor to rice production, which results in huge economic losses. It is becoming a more serious issue with respect to the global climate change. Keeping in view of the current and forecasted global food demand, it has become essential to enhance the crop productivity on the drought-prone rainfed lands with priority. In order to achieve the production target from rainfed areas, there is a requirement of rice varieties with drought tolerance, and genetic improvement for drought tolerant should be a high priority theme of research in the future. Breeding for drought tolerant rice varieties is a thought-provoking task because of the complex nature and multigenic control of drought tolerant traits would be a major bottleneck for the current research. A great progress has been made during last two decades in our understanding of the mechanisms involved in adaptation and tolerance to drought stress in rice. In this review, we highlighted the recent progresses in physiological, biochemical and molecular adaptation of rice to drought tolerance. A brief discussion on the molecular genetics and breeding approaches for drought tolerance in rice will be focused for the future crop improvement program for development of drought tolerant rice varieties.

干旱胁迫是水稻生产的严重限制因素，导致巨大的经济损失。关于全球气候变化，这正在成为一个更加严重的问题。考虑到当前和预测的全球粮食需求，优先考虑在干旱多雨的土地上提高作物生产力已变得至关重要。为了实现雨育地区的生产目标，需要具有耐旱性的水稻品种，并且对耐旱性进行遗传改良将是未来研究的高度优先主题。由于耐旱性状的复杂性和多基因控制将是当前研究的主要瓶颈，因此耐旱水稻品种的育种是一项令人深思的任务。在过去的二十年中，我们对水稻适应和耐受干旱胁迫的机制有了很大的了解。在这篇综述中，我们强调了水稻在生理，生化和分子适应干旱方面的最新进展。关于水稻抗旱性的分子遗传学和育种方法的简短讨论将集中于未来开发抗旱水稻品种的作物改良计划。