of other sorts. Just as a person needing groundwater may be dis-
posed to believe in a water witcher in order to make a choice of a well locaåon (Hyman and Vogt, 1974), the individual confronted with complex hydrological or meteorological events must seek other, operable desa•iptions.
A determinate ordering of the universe is one device: droughts or floods are seen as recurring regularly and periodically. Or they are viewed as becoming more frequent or less frequent. Denial of possible recurrence of the event is another device. Among twenty sites, respondents' views of the prospect for a return of the extreme
event were as shown in Table 4.3. The sophisticated view—that it
could happen any year—is the prevalent view especially in high-income areas. The deterministic view—consistent the gam-