Well, in THEORY building up the soil level above the "flood water table" might help ... but I don't bet that way.
As a Junior Mole-Man In Training, I figure that digging DOWN is what makes water go where I want it (away from the root zone)!
Honestly, despite having an obsession with drainage, I was away from gardening for some years, and then started "improving" my new yard without much or any thought.
You might think that NO ONE could forget that water only runs DOWNhill. Think again:
BEFORE TRENCHING:
This could probably have been fixed in some
sane way, but that didn't appeal to me.
