This paper is composed of two parts dealing with the modeling of environmental phenomena. The first part presents the traditional ER and OO formalisms dedicated to geographic information modeling. These languages focus mainly on representing the spatial and temporal properties of this type of information. Many of these languages express these properties visually by using pictograms. After a quick historical presentation of the languages, the authors show the various types of spatiality and temporality usually encountered in these languages. Often qualified as primitive, some of these spatialities and temporalities are simple. Others, more complex, result from combinations of simple spatialities and simple temporalities. Still others are used in very specific situations encountered during the development of geographical information systems. These different spatialities and temporalities are presented via examples provided in the field of environmental dynamics.