New opportunities for water environments. River tourism and water leisure activities

Abstract

Water has always fascinated humans. It has been responsible for establishing the earliest human settlements and today it still influences population distribution. The coast and shore are just as attractive as rivers and lakes. The reservoirs that supply drinking water provide opportunities for the utilization of various factors that are important ill daily life and in social economics. They offer accessibility, mobility, the satisfaction of basic needs -contributing to nutrition, for instance - and are the setting for recreational pursuits. They have symbolic significance, too, associated with religion and the divine. Rivers have always been present, in every era of human civilization, and they simultaneously represent plenty and destruction, life and death, and down the centuries they have become identified with the societies they support. Indeed, the power and image of many civilizations is intrinsically linked to the successful exploitation of water.