166 Book Reviews

contrasting management systems of nomadism in Niger, tracing it from its origins to the present, when it is increasingly competing with alternative land uses and political intrusion, and central Australia, where examples are presented from the Gascoyne Basin and Alice Springs. Water resource development and irrigation are examined at the river-basin scale through the cases of the Nile and Colorado basins, while oasis development is dis- cussed with the aid of Iranian and North American examples. The remaining five chapters are each devoted to a single example and though at first glance these can appear to be no more than regional descriptions, each does in fact address a major aspect of human use of drylands and its com- mensurate management issues. These themes and their illustrations are changing patterns of exploita- tion (Gulf states), integrated water development (Israel), water transfers (Soviet central Asia) and urbanization (Los Angeles). The book is concluded by the cursory, almost obligatory, discussion of what the future holds for dryland development in the form of an 8-page-long Part Three.

The writing of this book was clearly a major task, one for which the author has demonstrated his knowledge and enthusiasm for drylands and his stamina. The case studies are all well written, contain the appropriate amount of background information prior to examining the resource issue concerned and, above all, are informative, inter- esting and, where appropriate, well argued. It could be suggested that for some of the issues alternative examples might have been more appropriate or representative. This is, however, irrelevant, for given the nature of arid environments, with their diverse environmental, cultural and political attributes, no example can really be seen as repre- sentative or as a model for practices in other locations; each must be considered on the basis of its own complex interacting characteristics. The case studies therefore illustrate admirably, albeit implicitly, the diversity of drylands and the management problems which their use by humans give rise to.

Reading the book left me with two reservations. The first concerns the length of the volume and the relationship between the first and second parts. Given that each case study is virtually self- contained and also deals with a major issue, there is a considerable amount of overlap between Parts One and Two. Although the former professes to be a systematic study, the frequent inclusion of short case studies results in the loss of much of the direct- ness appropriate to the introductory chapters in a book of this sort. An outcome of the resultant overlap is that the text can at times appear to be rather too long and wordy.

The second reservation is that at f60, it is unclear at what market the book is really aimed. It would be most useful at student level, but at this price it seems destined to be either a reference book found on the library shelf or to play second fiddle to the

more succinct and considerably cheaper volume by Heathcote (1983).

Despite these reservations, there is much to commend this book in terms of the plethora of detail which it contains and the way in which it addresses and traces the development of important issues in arid land management.

Heathcote, R. L. (1983) The arid lands: their use and abuse. London: Longman.

David Thomas Deparfment of Geography, University of Sheffield

Smith, S. L. .I. Tourism analysis: a handbook. Harlow: Longman, 1989.312~~. f18.95 hardback.

Tourism has become a major industry in the western world as disposable income has increased, travel has become easier (with, for example, airfare deregulation) and people have become more conscious of utilizing their free time more usefully and carefully. At the same time, increasing aware- ness of one’s home region or country on geo- graphical, environmental, cultural and historic dimensions, has resulted in many communities viewing tourism as a potential source of income and employment.

The need for careful assessment in tourism development is critical, given its vast variety in terms of geographic scale, phenomena, business organization, and environmental impact. Equally problematical for those involved in tourism research has been the identification of suitable assessment methodologies. Smith’s book has been written to address the current major challenges facing tourism research, specifically marketing and tourist-demand questions; identification of oppor- tunities for development; definition of the geo- graphic structure of the industry; description and evaluation of tourist destination regions; deter- mination of the value of public resources used in tourism; and estimation of the economic mag- nitude of the industry.

After two introductory chapters indicating the content, challenge and strategy of tourism research, and defining and describing tourism, the remaining eight address these challenges. The issues are set in context, as are the approaches and methodologies employed. Throughout, the book considers questions of definition, data availability and methodological procedures. As such it incor- porates statistical techniques but it is not simply an applied statistics book, since many of the tech- niques are those found in market research and other disciplines rather than statistics per se. The procedures considered are graded in terms of relative difficulty of the method and not only the methodology is clearly indicated, but practical

Book Reviews 167

examples of the technique. Furthermore, each chapter is accompanied by a further reading section and the book contains a substantial bibliography.

The book draws together a varietgy of practical research methodologies in an easily compre- hendable fashion, whereby researchers can begin to tackle the major issues in tourism. It is a volume which should grace the shelves not only of the academic researcher but, perhaps more particu- larly, of those involved in developing the tourism business itself.

A. .I. Parker University College Dublin

Davies, H. W. E., Edwards, D., Hooper, A. J. and Punter, J. V. Planning control in Western Europe. London: HMSO, 1989. 442 pp. f49.

Given that Britain has now been part of the European Community for over 17 years, surpris- ingly little is known in this country about the planning systems of our European neighbours. There are no doubt various explanations for this ignorance. In part it is due to the obvious need of the planning profession to concentrate on solving specific problems of land use change within the constraints of the British system. In part too, it is due to the not altogether sustainable belief that the British were world leaders in planning and have little to learn from anyone. But most of all it must arise from the great difficulty that anyone from this country has in understanding how things really work on the Continent: too often when viewed within the very narrow perspective of British development plans and development control, other European systems look literally inexplicable. This compendious volume goes a very long way in dispelling that ignorance not merely by presenting factual information about the control of develop- ment, and by extension development plans, but also by providing copious clues about how the facts are to be understood.

The work is the fruit of a Department of the Environment (DOE) research contract awarded in 1986 to the Joint Centre for Land Development Studies (College of Estate Management/University of Reading) and examines the control systems of five European countries: Britain, Denmark, France, West Germany and the Netherlands. It locates the system of each firmly within the country’s legal, constitutional and administrative context. As it turns out, the context is not just a scene-setter; it is integral to the explanation of why the systems have evolved in particular ways. Perhaps the single most striking factor that the

authors identify is that, in direct contrast to Britain with its tradition of common law, all the other countries have a codified system of law and separate systems of courts for the administration which derive ultimately from the Code NapolPon. This in turn has led to plans which are legally binding, containing detailed zoning and regula- tions. Much stress is thus laid upon the certainty of the development plan and the legality of develop- ment control decision-making. The open-ended character of British development control, with its ‘other material considerations’ and its evolution of policy through a succession of uses, is alien to this Napoleonic tradition.

The watertightness of the foreign systems of control is more apparent than real, however, as the book makes clear. Sooner or later each is faced with the inherent uncertainty of forward planning and the occurrence of unforeseen circumstance. The authors make it clear that in practice all the systems offer the possibility of discretionary action, whether through exemptions or modifications to the plan in force or through the leeway offered in interpreting regulations. The French substitute ‘may’ for ‘must’ in many of their national regula- tions; the Dutch offer the possibility of outline plans which are only fleshed out when development is imminent; the Dutch and Danish can permit development in anticipation of a change to a plan in force; and so on.

The book contains an admirable wealth of detail on all five countries and is well illustrated with documents and examples of plans. The final section attempts a comparative evaluation and carries several tables which analyse processes in all the countries according to a common framework. In some ways this is the weakest part. The inevitable question-‘are the other systems better?‘-is of course not really answerable in those terms, even though the DOE no doubt thought that they could gain a few quick tips on how to speed the develop- ment control system. If they did, they will have been disappointed. Perhaps this explains why it has taken two years from the completion of the work for the book to be published. The conclusion is, rightly, that planning systems are specific by their context and direct comparisons are at best ‘proble- matic’. Underneath this, however, is a whole area of debate on the nature of decision-making, the use and misuse of discretion and the role of negotiation which goes to the very heart of the planning process. The significant value of Planning confrol in Western Europe is the way it has opened up this debate.

Philip Booth Department of Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield