1.2. The TOPO-EUROPE network
The TOPO-EUROPE network was officially launched during a symposium held in October 2005 in Heidelberg, Germany with the objective to tackle the challenges in continental topography research. TOPO-EUROPE aims at integrating European communities that hitherto have been active under discrete research and implementation schemes in the field of continental topography research. Subjects that have been addressed include land subsidence and uplift, and fluctuations of the erosional base level in response to sea-level changes and local tectonics.
The TOPO-EUROPE network serves as a vehicle to (i) advance the understanding of processes controlling topography development and related geohazards, (ii) promote Europe as international scientific leader in the new field of continental topography research, (iii) provide improved working opportunities for high-level researchers, and (iv) counteract the brain drain to areas outside Europe.
With the establishment of a strong network of collaborating institutes, the international TOPO-EUROPE project will be able to tackle a set of outstanding questions pertaining to lithospheric, surface and climate-related processes controlling the on-going topography evolution and related natural hazards of the Alps/Carpathians-Pannonian Basin System, the West and Central European Platform, the Apennines-Aegean-Anatolian region, the Iberian Peninsula, the Scandinavian Atlantic Margin, the East-European Platform and the Caucasus-Levant area. These natural laboratories comprise some of the best-documented orogens, sedimentary basins and continental margins worldwide. As such, they offer key study areas for the development of a new generation of models for on-going lithospheric deformation and its effect on continental topography development, both on regional and local scales.
Research will focus on the interplay between active tectonics, topography evolution, and related sea-level changes and drainage pattern development. This includes the development of an integrated observation and analysis strategy, focusing on large-scale changes in vulnerable areas of Europe. Geoprediction in poly-phase deformed and tectonically active orogenic systems requires multidisciplinary efforts and, therefore, the interaction and collaboration of researchers covering a broad field of expertise. Among other eminent scientific disciplines, geology, geophysics, geodesy, hydrology, climatology, as well as various fields of geotechnology will be integrated. TOPO-EUROPE will address several scientific issues of key relevance, such as (i) the 4D development of Europe’s topography, (ii) the quantification of source-to-sink relations to quantify sediment budgets, (iii) the quantification of land subsidence in the basins and deltas of Europe, (iv) the quantification of land uplift in orogenic and intraplate domains, (v) the quantification of tectonically controlled river evolution and (vi) the effects of climate changes.
This paper aims at giving an overview on continental topography research, its future challenges and expected breakthroughs. Its first part summarizes old and new methods and techniques available to TOPO-EUROPE researchers. Its second part discusses the state of research in some of the ‘natural laboratories’ that have been selected as targets for TOPO-EUROPE research during the next 10 years. In the third part of this paper the TOPO-EUROPE science plan is presented, including specific targets and expected deliverables of the programme in the years to come.