LANDSCAPE SENSITIVITY AND CHANGE

Systems and forms are subject, over 102-105 years, to pertur- bations caused by high magnitude-low frequency events, environmenal change and internal structural instabilities, which initiate change. The responses to these impulses are complex and include damped, sustained and reinforcing changes taking place by ubiquitous, linear or diffusive propagation which reflect the sensitivity of the landscape to change. Results include the concepts of 1) relief and pattern persistence; 2) stagnancy of development and the hypothesis of unequal activity; 3) convergence of form; 4) the concept of transient forms; 5) stability-instability phases and episodic landscape evolution. -from Authors