The Tibetan Plateau, with the most prominent and complicated terrain on the globe and an elevation of more than 4 000 m on average above sea level, is often called the “Third Pole”. Due to its topographic character, the plateau surface absorbs a large amount of solar radiation energy (much of which is redistributed by cryospheric processes), and undergoes dramatic seasonal changes of surface heat and water fluxes. Like the Arctic and Antarctica, the Tibetan Plateau area is one of the most sensitive areas responding to global climate change due to its high altitude and the presence of permafrost and glaciers, which are most sensitive to global warming. The effective way to understand water-ice-air-ecosystem interactions over heterogeneous landscape of the Tibetan Plateau is to establish the comprehensive research stations over the different land surfaces of the Tibetan Plateau. With support from various agencies in the People’s Republic of China, the Tibetan Observation and Research Platform (TORP) is now implementing. Firstly, 5 comprehensive observation and research stations established by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences，are introduced. Then the preliminary observational results are shown in the paper. Finally, the difficulty in observation and study of water-ice-air-ecosystem interactions of the Tibetan Plateau and the possible solutions are presented.