ABSTRACT
All over the blue planet, even in the most rained-upon nations, people are engaged in conflicts over water. The importance of water is demonstrated by the fact that every academic discipline deals with it in way or another. Disciplines dealing with environmental issues have focused mainly on the biology and hydrology of water, and on the growing problems in water resource management. A key area of literature in considering water is therefore concerned with sensory experience: the ‘acculturation’ of the senses, and the relationship between sensory experience, cognitive interpretation and the creation of meaning. The essentiality of water also means that there is much common ground in human interactions with it, which opens the door to a useful cross-cultural comparison of the various themes of meaning that emerge.
