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The article focuses on problems of siting and planning urban developments. Topics discussed include problems faced by developments in active periglacial areas, glacial and fluvioglacial surface materials, dynamic relationship of floodplains with the river that flows through it, urban areas on alluvial fans, slope stability and mass movement, and piping.

The article presents information on periglacial landforms. Topics discussed include characteristics of altiplanation terraces, block fields, and rock glaciers, development of patterned ground, formation of frost mounds and pingos, development of thermokarst and associated melt forms and the presence of river valleys, deltas, sand dunes, glaciated terrain, beaches, and other more familiar landforms within periglacial regions.

The article presents information on ground ice and permafrost. Topics discussed include characteristics of ground ice, pore ice as the most widely distributed of ground-ice types, segregated ice, intrusion ice, formation of vein ice and wedge ice, and the optimum expression of periglacial forms and processes.

The article presents information on periglacial processes. Topics discussed include frost action or the process of freezing and thawing, solifluction or gelifluction, frost cracking, other processes such as wind and running water which are also active in periglacial regions and ice jams are the frequent cause of flooding on arctic rivers.

The article presents information on engineering and fossil periglacial forms. Topics discussed include forms and processes such as involutions, solifluction, valley bulging, and cambering in Britain, peat deposits in former pingo craters in The Netherlands, ice-wedge casts in Poland, and crop (ice-wedge) polygons in Denmark, and locations of fossil ice wedges in Denmark.

The article presents information on periglacial soils. Topics discussed include morphological, physical, and chemical characteristics of periglacial soils, soil types in periglacial environments which often reflect the type of patterned ground with which they are associated and the most important characteristics of soil in the Arctic.

The article presents information on river ice, lake ice, and sea ice. Topics discussed include abundance of lakes and rivers in the periglacial regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the role of the temperature regime in the lengthy period of the year during which rivers, lakes, and the sea are covered with ice, and the two basic types of rivers in the periglacial areas of the Northern Hemisphere.

The article focuses on unique and serious problems posed by the periglacial landscape to engineers.

The article presents information on periglacial forms and processes. Topics discussed include implications of the inheritance of periglacial features for engineering works and how the realisation of the strategic importance of periglacial areas is providing opportunities for geomorphological and other research and for the development of appropriate engineering principles.