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Activities > Wind Erosion

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[ || Soil Moisture || Geology & Soil Texture || Biological Soil Crusts || Fire || Vegetation Dynamics || Soil Compaction || Wind Erosion || Climate || Repeat Photography || Land Use History || Spatial Modeling || ]

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Windy day at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert. Photo by Tony Troxler, USGS.

Desert surfaces are inherently fragile, and many land uses disrupt the thin crusts that typically protect the landscape from wind and water erosion. Both the presence and type of biological soil crust mantling soil surfaces are important process controls on surficial erosion.

Depiction of the vulnerability of soils to wind erosion requires multiple elements of study. Elements include development of a wind erosion geographic information system (GIS) model; measurement of wind speed, direction, and duration at specific sites; experimentation using portable wind tunnels on disturbed and undisturbed geomorphic surfaces; and the development of GIS data layers depicting wind potential and other factors related to wind erosion.

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Kelso Dunes in the Mojave National Preserve. Photo by David Miller, USGS.

Methodology

The vulnerability of desert surfaces to wind erosion and their recoverability after disturbance has been modeled using data from portable wind-tunnel measurements, soil characteristics (chemical and physical) and vegetative community characteristics (cover, density, and arrangement). This model is being field-tested, using new sites that represent a range of soil surface ages, altituds, soil grain sizes, and parent materials. After control runs are complete, areas immediately adjacent will be disturbed and another wind-tunnel measurement done after the disturbance. Disturbance will consist of creating a vehicle tire track approximately 5 m long. Again, high winds will be generated (based on previously recorded speeds in the area) and sediment will be collected. In addition, a subset of old sites will be revisited where the created-disturbance testing will be repeated. These data will be used to assess recovery rates of young disturbances on different geomorphic surfaces.

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Products

Preliminary Wind sediment production map for disturbed soils in the Mojave National Preserve.

Belnap, J., Phillips, S.L., Herrick, J.E., and Johansen, J.R., In press, Wind erodibility of soils at Ft. Irwin, CA (Mojave Desert) before and after trampling disturbance: Implications for lands management: Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.

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