The observatory is a long-term monitoring site of Earth surface processes, solid, solute and gaseous matter fluxes and biogeochemical cycles and their drivers, straddling an active mountain landscape from orogen ridgepole to coastline. Set within a national park, and benefiting from road access to a full range of representative sites, the observatory links solid Earth and surface research, by recording the interplay between tectonic and surface processes over time. The scientific questions revolve around the interactions of processes and process domains, and the resulting fluxes, within the context of variable conditions set by annual climate cycles and irregular typhoon and earthquake occurrence. Examples are the interactions of chemical, physical, (micro)biological processes in driving erosion and weathering processes, and the seasonality of erosion and sediment transfer processes with leads and lags between the different components of the landscape. Due to the wide range of precipitation values with strong spatial gradients and frequent earthquakes, the observatory allows quantifying the first order forcing mechanisms on matter fluxes and assess their importance in global cycles.

The monitoring of the entire landscape is achieved by combining two separate types of stations with a large number of different sensors. First, combined seismic and weather stations provide constraints on the spatial distribution of weather patterns, such as of temperature and precipitation. Seismic signals can be used to locate and quantify surface processes. They generally also feature cameras for time lapse images and occasionally soil moisture sensors. Second, three hydrometric stations are used to monitor river processes. All permanent stations record automatically, are energy autonomous, and are fully telemetered. In addition, the observatory boasts an established array of bedrock boreholes with groundwater access and a high mountain meteorological stations, both components of wider, national networks.

• Seismic data are available on GEOFON:
  Turowski, J., Chen, W.-S., Queißer, T., Chang, J.-M., Chao, W.-A., Nativ, R., Dietze, M., Hovius, N., Chen, Y.-G., Chang, W.-Y. (2022): Taiwan multi-parametric environmental seismic network. https://doi.org/10.14470/GD993669
  
  Data publication for other data types is in preparation. Contact Jens Turowski and Torsten Queißer for enquiring about access to other data types.

• Taroko Nationalpark