Twenty years of systematic physical geography: issues for a 'New Environmental Age'

Abstract

This review assesses the role of physical geography in the 'New Environmental Age'; it addresses especially the role of the natural systems approach after 20 years in which this has constituted the main fabric of physical geography in the UK. It also necessarily examines the role of geomorphology, the dominant partner in British physical geography, in positioning the subject as an environmental science. Systems thinking has clearly pervaded pedagogic aspects of physical geography but its full holistic methodology has not provided a coherent disciplinarity in research or applications. A holistic, conservationist perspective has often been disowned by physical geographers, leaving professional environmental applications largely in the hands of applied geomor phology. Now, however, there are major opportunities for a broader physical geography, especially one prepared to re-espouse the social science and humanities aspects of geography whose knowledge-base is so essential to the environmental manager's 'scenario-setting' (as opposed to pure physical modelling). Breadth-versus-depth arguments seem, however, likely to continue in physical geography, with those favouring breadth necessarily becoming environmentalists whilst those retaining depth become less preoccupied by equilibrium conditions of systems, stressing instead discontinuity and natural hiatuses.