Complex Response: An environmental reaction to change that occurs at multiple levels to multiple objects, and can induce a chain reaction of responses to a single initial change.
The reaction to a change at multiple, and possibly unforeseen, levels. This could include a chain reaction of responses to a single initial change, resulting in a complex set of results, which in turn, could lead to more, and again possibly unforeseen, change. Succinctly, it is akin to the butterfly effect: one small event (change) can cascade through a given system creating new agents of change, and operating at several levels.
The term complex response in most commonly used in fluvial geomorphology, or the study of river systems and changes within those systems.
Famous quotes containing the words complex and/or response:
“We must open our eyes and see that modern civilization has become so complex and the lives of civilized men so interwoven with the lives of other men in other countries as to make it impossible to be in this world and out of it.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“... the most extreme conditions require the most extreme response, and for some individuals, the call to that response is vitality itself.... The integrity and self-esteem gained from winning the battle against extremity are the richest treasures in my life.”
—Diana Nyad (b. 1949)