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Hauhs, Michael ; Graefe, Olivier:
Sustainable use of water from natural and social science perspectives.
In: Geography Compass.
Bd. 3
(2009)
Heft 6
.
- S. 2025-2044.
ISSN 1749-8198
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00283.x
Abstract
Several seemingly incompatible meanings of water coexist today and are implicated in the organisationof sustainable water usage by humans. We review the conceptual basis of the dominatingnatural science approach to water as a finite resource. This physical approach shows limits relevantfor the notion of sustainability. Valuation and interpretation of human–water relationships asmeaningful, which are still widespread in practice and are studied by humanities, appear as irrationalunder this approach. The natural science perspective is complemented by a second, novelmodelling paradigm which is based on a refined notion of behaviour and has been developed incomputer science. No single model is superior along the whole water cycle, but the varying influencesof living systems along the cycle may require different model abstractions and concepts. Thenovel extended modelling approach can be formally used to accommodate hermeneuticapproaches to the meaning of water typical of social sciences. It organises a systematic ‘fact-valueintegration’rather than the separation typical of natural science. Hence, traditional and modernapproaches to the organisation of sustainable water utilisation can be compared from a consistentand systematic conceptual basis linking natural and social sciences.