SYSTEMS APPROACH IN PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

The concept of a system is not new and the emergence of systems analysis in academia has caused controversy over the significance of this approach as a viable means of scientific analysis. Some geography scholars feel that the use of systems analysis would definitely put us on the research frontier,1 while others view the term " systems" as nothing more than jargon. Nevertheless, the simplest definition for system is " a set of interrelated elements." The demand for the systems approach arose because scholars in a number of disciplines recognized in their own research that individual components of a problem or an entity almost never operate in isolation. Interrelationships were the rule rather than the exception in real problem solving situations.