Abstract: To explore the relationship between water supply in roots, light intensity on leaves and reactive oxygen metabolism, the effects of various treatments including natural light plus normal watering (T₁), 50% shading plus normal watering (T₂), natural light plus PEG-6000 simulated drought (T₃), 50% shading plus simulated drought (T₄) on reactive oxygen level and antioxidant enzyme activity in ginger leaves were studied. The results showed that, 6 days after treatment, the O^-·₂ production rate and H₂O₂ and MDA contents remarkably increased in ginger leaves at midday. Treatment T₃ showed the greatest increment, followed by T₄, T₁ and T₂ in order. In addition, the activities of SOD and POD in all treatments and CAT in T₃ and T₄ noticeably decreased, while CAT in T₁ and T₂ exhibited a high activity at midday. Throughout the whole treatment, reactive oxygen level and antioxidant enzyme activities of ginger leaves in T₁ and T₂ remained stable, with a higher activity in T₁ than in T₂. However, the reactive oxygen level kept increasing in leaves exposed to treatments T₃ and T₄. Meanwhile, the activities of antioxidant enzymes increased firstly and then decreased. Taken together, this study demonstrated that drought stress, especially drought plus light stress, led to an increased accumulation of reactive oxygen in ginger leaves, while shading was conducive to maintaining high activity of protective enzymes, and therefore to reducing reactive oxygen level and alleviate drought-induced injury.