Introduction

Ever since the end of the Second World War drastic changes have been going on in the disciplines which compose physical geography. One way is to assume that the stuff of the physical world with which geographers are concerned are its resources – resources in the widest sense; not just coal and iron, but water, ease of movement, and even available space itself. In the development of water as a focus of geographical interest the evolution of a human-oriented physical geography and an environmentally sensitive human geography closely related to resource management is well under way. Equally important is that in the human use of water there is clear acknowledgement of man’s dependence on environment. The need for a wider basis of choice to account for the social desirability of water-resource development persists and deepens as the number of water-related values increase and the means for achieving them multiply.