The effects of enhanced weathering should be understood as an overall shift in CO₂ fluxes as a result of introducing alkalinity to the system through rock weathering. While most applied minerals will ultimately weather, enhanced weathering approaches should only be credited when the impact on atmospheric CO₂ actually occurs. The rate of rock weathering, and therefore alkalinity introduction, depends on many factors including rock type, particle size, soil type, ambient temperature, precipitation, and irrigation. At a given point in time, it may be possible to measure how much rock has weathered via elemental analysis or by tracking changes in the concentration of tracer elements that originate in the applied rocks and persist in the soil after rock weathering. Rock weathering may be facilitated by different sources of acid (carbonic or non-carbonic) and result in different weathering products, which can each have unique impacts on system CO₂ fluxes. If rock is weathered by carbonic acid, a potential product is dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). To inform a lower bound on rock weathering and characterize how much additional DIC is leaving the site because of the weathering, effluent from the weathering site can be continuously monitored to detect changes in the carbonic acid system. These changes can be constrained by monitoring any two components of the carbonic acid system: pH, total alkalinity (TA), partial pressure of CO₂ (pCO₂), or dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Both approaches — monitoring of the rock in the weathering site and monitoring the effluent leaving the weathering site — are areas of active innovation.