The seminar was jointly organized by Academia Sinica in Taiwan and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (BOKU). It was a follow-up to a joint seminar bringing together experts on climate change that was held in Taiwan in March, 2015, when a group of Austrian professors visited Taiwan.

At the 2015 Climate Change Seminar experts from Austria and Taiwan tackled the issues of: (1) extreme events and their effects on the terrestrial and aquatic carbon, (2) paleo-environments, and geomorphology using optically stimulated luminescence dating, (3) typhoon event history, based on chronological isotopic and elemental information recorded in corals, and (4) flood forecasting and risk management.

The 2015 seminar laid the foundation for future cooperative projects, and a goal of this year’s seminar was to develop a number of specific proposals for future joint research projects on various topics, to be jointly funded by Austria and Taiwan. This year’s joint seminar in Austria brought together 26 people with complementary expertise and research approaches, and experience, and familiarity with techniques in different scientific fields. Their broad goal is to develop new approaches to global climate change research in mountainous regions, comparing and contrasting the environmental and climatic settings in the two countries.

The Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Austria held a welcome dinner for the delegation on April 13 which was also attended by Professor Dr. Martin Gerzabek, the Rector of BOKU, and by Dr. Felix Wilcek from the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, as distinguished guests. Ms. Wang Hsiang-Yueh, Head of the Education Division in TECO, thanked Professor Franz Zehetner and Professor Lee Der-Chuen from Academia Sinica for organizing the delegation’s visit and wished the group of scientists success in their future cooperative research projects.