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a central concern, which consolidates its role as part of geography
as a whole.
Integrated physical geography, despite a long tradition dating
back to Alexander von Humboldt, is currently the least developed
of these roles. It nevertheless has the potential to bring together
the various specialisms and provide a basis for developing further
links with interdisciplinary science and with human geography.
This line of argument suggests that integrated physical geography
could be a focus around which to build a new physical geography
defi ned as:
that branch of geography concerned with (a) identifying, describing
and analysing the distribution of biogeochemical elements of the
environment; (b) interpreting environmental systems at all scales,
both spatial and temporal, at the interface between atmosphere,
biosphere, lithosphere and society; and (c) determining the
resilience of such systems in response to perturbations, including
human activities.
O. Slaymaker and T. Spencer,
Physical Geography and Global
Environmental Change
(1998)
