‘Space and time are treated as sticky concepts that are difficult to separate from each other’ (Dodgshon (2008) Geografiska B 20, 1). We need to be able to understand time to tell the story of how an individual place developed, and to understand space to understand the complexity of the way different places develop. Galton (2004) Spat. Cogn. & Comput. 4, 1 explains that in the real world there is rarely a clean separation between (spatial) objects and (temporal) events. ‘For example, a meteorologist tracking a tropical cyclone will naturally view it as an object which comes into existence at a certain place and time and moves along a well-defined path, eventually fading away and ceasing to exist. From the point of view of an inhabitant of a town in its path, the cyclone is much more like an event: the sudden onset of strong winds and rain, bringing destruction to the town and then dying away leaving the inhabitants to pick up the pieces.’

Massey (1999) TIBG 24, 3 argues that space ‘is not static, not a cross-section through time; it is disrupted, active and generative. It is not a closed system; it is constantly, as space-time, being made.’ Lane (2001) TIBG 26, 2, following Massey’s argument (op. cit.) that the sort of space–time model that we adopt needs to be informed by the entities that we study, concludes that some of the space–time models that Massey critiques ‘may still be fundamental to what we do, and in no sense necessarily ahistorical’.

For geomorphologists, Raper and Livingstone (1995) Int. J. GIS 9 propose a relational space–time, since the identity of a geomorphological phenomenon is generated by the spatio-temporal relations between causal processes and the local nature of the environment. ‘The relational notion of space-time implies internal relations; external influences get internalized in specific processes or things through time’ (D. Harvey 2005). Neutens et al. (2007) Int. J. GIS 21, 10 visualize space and time in three dimensions using a hybrid (CAD/GIS) system.