Landscape systems lie at the heart of physical geography, linking landforms to the processes that create them, and linking those processes to the global environmental system that controls them. Glaciated landscapes provide a good example of how landscape systems work because they demonstrate clearly the links between landforms, processes and environmental controls.

The system can be observed at a range of timescales: processes can be measured in action at scales from seconds to days at existing glaciers.

Glaciers are part of a broader environmental system and are associated with clear inputs and outputs. The difference between these inputs and outputs determines how the glacier behaves.