Surface evaporation is the most significant source of water loss in surface irrigation systems in arid and semi-arid regions, primarily due to intense sunlight. Subsurface drip irrigation is therefore presented as a key solution for reducing this surface evaporation. Due to the varying results found in research studies on the effects of subsurface drip irrigation on crop yield and agricultural water productivity, a meta-analysis was conducted to statistically evaluate its performance. For this study, 42 papers were selected using the PRISMA protocol. The performance of subsurface drip irrigation was then compared to other irrigation methods in terms of crop yield and agricultural water productivity. The results showed that the calculated effect size for both crop yield and agricultural water productivity was positive and statistically significant at the 5% level for subsurface drip irrigation when compared to other irrigation methods. The effectiveness of subsurface drip irrigation in improving crop yield was found to be moderate (0.5), while its effectiveness for agricultural water productivity was high (1.25). However, the effectiveness of subsurface drip irrigation in increasing crop yield was low (0.298) compared to surface irrigation and was not significant, as indicated by the confidence interval of [-0.474, 1.07]. The overall effect size of subsurface drip irrigation on agricultural water productivity was 1.31 when compared to surface drip irrigation and 1.25 when compared to surface irrigation. Both results demonstrate a strong effect of subsurface drip irrigation on increasing agricultural water productivity, and the confidence intervals confirm that these effects are statistically significant.