A group of five researchers (leader: Yoshifumi Hara, standing councilor at Japan Sabo Association) visited Taiwan from November 5 to 11, 2012 to participate in the Taiwan-Japan-Austria Joint Symposium and conduct on-site observations as part of the 2012 Taiwan-Japan joint research on Sabo.

The Joint Symposium was held in the international conference room of National Chung Hsing University. Tomomi Marutani, professor of Hokkaido University, Takashi Gomi, associate professor of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and Kazunori Fujisawa, manager of sabo research in Nippon Expressway Research Institute Co., Ltd. (NEXCO RI) from Japan gave presentations. Five researchers from Taiwan and ten researchers from Austria also gave presentations.

Experiments on collapsing clogged rivers was conducted as an on-site experiment using a stream with a width of about 15 meters located in the experimental forest of National Chung Hsing University. Also, clogged rivers with a height of about 2.5 to 3 meters were created at two locations to observe the process of accumulating water, overflow, erosion, and collapse of the clogging. The participants observed this experiment.

As on-site observations, the participants visited the site where preventive measures were installed against the landslide of the Jiufen Ershan Mountain that collapsed during the 921 earthquake in 1999 and the 921 Earthquake Museum. The participants also visited the stream maintenance site in southern Gengfang and the stream maintenance site of Dajiao in Yilan County in the northeastern part of Taiwan as the sites of stream maintenance works that were conducted while protecting the ecosystem and the environment.