Recent trends in South African water historiography

Abstract

The discipline of water history is relatively young but since the 1990s there has been growing interest in the field. In this article an exposition is provided on the origins of the discipline of water history as a subdivision of environmental history. The discussion then turns to an outline of recent developments in the historiography of water history in South Africa. Attention is also given to the possibility of extending the study of this discipline into a number of allied fields.