The Dictionary of Human Geography

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justification for its material and methods ham-

pered progress in achievingscientific engage-

ment with the environment. This kind of

physical geography (foundedeitherin the dis-

closure of spatial associations or in

the examination of human–environment

relations – the contested identities of the sub-

ject: Turner, 2002) demanded a vocabulary

and style of enquiry adapted to the scale and

scope of landscape and regional study, which

set it far apart from the other sciences, and

which, throughout the latter half of the twen-

tieth century, did not seem relevant to their

increasingly reductionist methodologies.

As regionalism itself receded from the geo-

graphical stage, the role and relations of phys-

ical geography were once more examined. By

this time, climatology, geomorphology and

ecology were all well advanced separately,

and without areal relations as a touchstone,

there were uncomfortable parallels with the

identity crisis of earlier generations:

It is clear that physical geography, however

much it overlaps with the earth sciences,

must be distinguished from disciplines

which study terrestrial phenomena for their

own sake, irrespective of their relevance to

the spatial characterisation of man’s occu-

pancy and exploitation ... (Chorley, 1971,

p. 95)

For Chorley, there were several ways forward

for physical geography to avoid increasing

divergence within geography and to ensure

‘relevance’ to science and society beyond:

common application of techniques and

methods (model-building and increasingly,

GIS); study of resources and development;

and (general) systems theory (GST), in large

part adapted from Ludwig von Bertalanffy (a

biologist). Of these, only the last topic was

new, and for Chorley, it was only this that

provided a truly integrating concept and a

widely transferable approach:

. .. systems can be visualised as three-
dimensional structures in which the very
complicated flows and relationships forming
the socio-economic spatial decision-making
systems interpenetrate the physical process-
response systems ... (ibid., p. 22)

1900

Huntington

Fleure

Bowman

Brunhes

Blache

Leploy

Rat-

zel

Chistiolm

Ripley

Matthew

Kappen

Bjerknes

Bort

Worming Monn

Darvin

L. Green

Agassiz

Peschel

Cook

Franklin

Mac-

kenzie

Living stone

Nanseon

Scott

Peary

Penok

Suess

Davis

De Mor-

ranne

Buckan

1850

Ritter

Cuvier

Humboldt

PATTERNS

URBAN

SETTLEMENT

FORECASTING

SOCIOL: GEOG

ECON: GEOG

BIO: GEOG

METEOROLOGY

CLIMATOLOGY

MORPHOLOGY

SURVEYS

EXPLORATION

ASTRON: GEOG

HIST: GEO

PHYSICAL

HUMAN

ETHNOLOGY

Varenius

Newton

Delisle

Harrison

D’Anville

1800

1750

1700

THEOCRATIC

GEO CRATIC

WEOCRATIC

physical geography 2: The ramifications of modern geography since 1700(Taylor, 1953, fig. 1, p. 4)

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 535 1.4.2009 3:20pm

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY