Wind erosion in eastern Australia

Abstract

Land degradation surveys in Australia may not have fully delineated the nature and extent of wind erosion, owing perhaps, to a shortage of quantitative data on wind erosion rates and to the subtle and transient nature of field evidence. The Ew Index of wind erosion demonstrates that regional climatic factors (i.e. effective soil moisture and wind erosivity) have a significant influence upon wind erosion rates (measured by dust storm frequencies). Also, a map of wind erosion classes shows areas where wind erosion is increased or decreased by local conditions of soil/sediment erodibility and/or agricultural and pastoral activities.

Salt Lakes in Australia: Present Problems and Prognosis for the Future

“…Knight et al, 1995), so that additions by anthropogenically-induced sedimentation are matched by losses to deflation (Timms, unpublished data). With lakes drying for longer, deflation by wind erosion (McTainsh et al, 1990) will be an important phenomenon (Fig. 2e).…”

Sand dunes mobility and stability in relation to climate

“…This M -index (2) is widely used by geologists and geomorphologists to determine whether sand dunes would be active or fixed as well as the expected effect of climate change on dune fields [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. Muhs [23] found a better pertinence between the degree of dune activity and the P/P ET values for the Great Plains sand dunes, while W is of lesser importance.…”

Using on‐nadir spectral reflectance to detect soil surface changes induced by simulated rainfall and wind tunnel abrasion

“…Many studies have focused on erosivity to model simply soil erosion over large areas. For example, wind erosion indices have been used to model the wind erosion potential in Australia (Kalma et al, 1988;Burgess et al, 1989;McTainsh et al, 1990McTainsh et al, , 1998. These studies assume that variation in surface erodibility is static in time and/or in space.…”