Epävesipitoista

Epävesipitoista is a Finnish adjective describing materials, substances, or environments that have low water content; in other words, not water-saturated or not moist. The form is used with nouns in partitive or other cases, for example epävesipitoista maata (non-water-saturated soil). It is common in scientific and technical Finnish, especially in soil science, hydrology, agronomy, botany, and material science, but may also appear in environmental reports and climate assessments.

In practice, epävesipitoista indicates a moisture condition below a threshold relevant to the subject, such as crop requirements or peatland classification. It is contrasted with vesipitoista (water-rich) or high-moisture conditions. The exact degree of dryness depends on context: soil texture, drainage, climate, and monitoring criteria.

Etymology: formed by adding the negative prefix epä- to vesipitoista (water-rich, moist). The root vesipitoista combines vesi (water) with pitoista (rich in). Related terms include vesipitoisuus (water content) and kosteuspitoisuus (moisture content); kuiva (dry) is often used for the opposite state.