The 'Coimbatore Declaration' of the three-day international symposium held last week said the government should enhance its rain water harvesting and watershed management to mitigate drought-related problems.
According to the declaration, the government should focus more on enhancing rain water productivity to improve the status of marginal farmers through developing, documenting and disseminating integrated farming systems.
Management of harvested and conserved water should be utilised through better management practices in conjunction with better soil fertility management, agronomic practices, and seed management among others.
Moreover, surface water storage and ground water recharge were complement to each other and needed proper understanding of the existing water resources, constraint in management when it was scarce and polluted.
Surplus run off available at a watershed level to basin level as a whole needed consideration before taking up large scale recharge programme, it said.
